
Class _^F50^£- 
Book_ - H _^Z_ 
GoR^TightN" 

COPyRIGlIT DEPOSIT. 



HOW WE MAKE DUCKS PAY 




AMERICAN PEKIN DUCKLING 

One of our birds, a female, ten weeks old, saved for a breeder and with 
some of her fat trained off by running around the range. The parallelogram 
shape of body which is aimed at in breeding is here in evidence. 

This is one of several poses which a duck assumes. vShe is in repose. At 
feeding time, and when they are waddling, the necks of both ducks and drakes 
are elongated and the body is tipped upwards, the whole poise being different 
from what this picture shows. Many birds are so fat at killing age that their 
bellies rest on the ground when they are standing in repose like this bird. When 
such birds walk, they have to make an effort to pull their bellies off the ground, 
and roll from side to side in their walk, like a sailor ashore. 



HOW WE 
MAKE DUCKS PAY 

Actual^ Successful Experience 
Not Doubtful Theory 

An Illustrated Guide to the Profitable 

Breeding of Our Modern Pekin 

All-White Mammoth 

Ducklings 



PLAIN AND THOROUGH LESSONS FOR 
BEGINNERS AND OTHERS EVERYWHERE 
WHO WRITE FOR THE DETAILS AND 
SECRETS OF OUR WATERLESS METHOD 



How TO Shelter, How to Get Plenty of Fertile 
Eggs, How to Hatch Them, How to Brood the 
Young, How to Feed at Different Ages, How to 
Fatten, How to Kill, How to Pick, How to Pack 
AND Ship, How to Market, How to Buy Breeding 
Stock, How to Select and Mate for Size and 
Stamina, How to Make Money, What to Do and 
What Not to Do, Many Questions and Answers 



145 PEARL STREET, BOSTON, MASS. 

AMERICAN PEKIN DUCK COMPANY 

1907 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

M.AH 9 190? 

L^ Copyright Entry 

rK^u/yj /yf 7 
cuss A XXC, No. 

COPY B. 



6 



t> 



^ 



c,^ 



COPYRIGHT. 1906. l)y THE AMERICAN PEKIN DUCK COMPANY 
COPYRIGHT, 1907, by THE AMERICAN PEKIN DUCK COMPANY 



Infringement Notice : The copyright protection 
given this worlv include.s both text and ilhis- 
trations, from cover to cover. The reproduction 
in any form of any part of the reading matter, 
or any picture, is expressly prohibited. 



Press of Murray and Emery Company 
Boston 



CONTENTS 

Page 

Introduction . . . : 9 

I. Ducks for Business 11 

II. Shelter, Ventilation 23 

III. Care of Breeding Stock 29 

IV. Sex, Pairing, Breeding 39 

V. The Egg 47 

VI. Youngest Ducklings 55 

VII. Fattening 69 

VIII. Killing, Picking, Shipping 75 

IX. Markets 91 

X. Question Box 117 




UNDER THIS SHELTER ROOF TO GET OUT OF SUX AXD RAIN 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

Page 
American Pekin dtickling (Frontispiece) 

Under this shelter roof to get out of sun and rain 7 

Here come the httle ones out of the nursery for an airing 14 

Duckhngs five weeks old in yards of second nursery house 18 

Feeding time for ducklings in the yards of the fattening sheds .... 20 

First nursery yards 22 

Exterior of brooder house 24 

Interior of brooder house 26 

On grass 30 

Food-mixing machine 34 

Drake, showing curl feather 40 

How to handle live birds 44 

Where they lay their eggs 48 

Incubator cellar, showing machines which hatch the eggs into 

ducklings 52 

Egg-testing lamp 53 

Fertile egg, seventh day 53 

Ducklings two weeks old 56 

Water fountains and food boards 58 

Thousands of youngsters 60 

Ducklings in the sun at mid-day 64 

Double brooder house 66 

Winter scene, brooder house 68 

Ready for feeding 70 

Meal time 72 

Fattening yards ; 74 

Sticking knife 75 

Knife used in picking 77 

Duck picker at work 78 

Ready for shipping 82 

Warm house, and yards 88 

Pen of ducklings on dirt run a week previous to killing 90 

Parallelogram body, depth of keel and plumpness 120 

Fattening shed and pens 126 

Shelter roof for ducks on the range 136 



INTRODUCTION 

The breeding of our modern large Pekin duckling 
is an industry whose possibilities a few of us have known 
for a long time, and demonstrated to the best of our 
ability. We believe many will be interested in our methods. 
We know thousands will see a light in these pages which 
will astonish them, as our own Vv'ork has astonished us. 
The strength of ducks as a business deserves telling, — the 
whole truth and nothing but the truth. 

It is difficult for us to work day by day and at the 
same time teach the business to beginners and others in a 
convincing and satisfactory manner, without a book like 
this. The answering of hundreds of letters weekly from 
those asking for advice and breeding stock is a tedious, 
incomplete and poor method of telling the hows and whys. 

We offer this instruction book to the American people 
and all nations in the hope that we are doing this branch 
of the great poultry industry a real and lasting service. 
We know the country is just getting awakened to the idea. 

The aim in writing it has been to give the details, and 
all the details, with the fullness, clearness and simplicity 
which a man or woman investigating a new subject de- 
mands. We give them in the order in which the subject 
naturally presents itself. 

We have tried to keep out as much as possible from 
this work our own enthusiasm over the duck business, 
intending to present the facts calmly and soberly so that 
the strength of the proposition would follow as a matter 
of course, without exaggeration. At the same time, we 
would not undervalue a proper amount of enthusiasm. 
He who would make the most out of ducks must feel a 
lively interest in the work, — that it is paying work, — work 
which will reward him surely and amply, as it has rewarded 
us. We would advise the beginner, if he decides to take 
hold, not to go ahead in a listless, doubting, skeptical way, 



HOW WE MAKE DUCKS PAT 

but confidently, knowing that he is able, and can do what 
others have done. There are no difficulties in the duck 
business which need appal the most timid, nor can great 
financial loss overtake one who observes common prudence. 

This edition of this instruction book is the second. 
We printed one thousand copies for the first edition to see 
how it would sell to the American people, and what they 
would think of it. We have been highly gratified at the 
reception given the work. The entire edition was quickly 
wiped out by an extraordinary demand from every section 
from those whom the subject interested. Letters of 
commendation, we are pleased to say, have poured in to us 
not only from practical duck breeders but beginners eager 
to know the best way of doing things. We are printing 
many of these letters in pages of the free booklet which we 
send out. They came to us in January, 1907, at the rate 
of a dozen or more a day and they are now, in February, 
coming at the same rate. We have room to print only a 
part of them. Some of the writers have asked questions 
covering additional points, and these we answer in the 
question box, chapter ten, of this edition. 

We intend to make this book a valuable, up-to-date 
help, complete and satisfying in every respect, and we will 
gladly welcome from you, after you have read it, any 
suggestions for its improvement, either in the way of read- 
ing matter or illustrations. It is pleasant to know that 
one's efforts are appreciated, and we heartily thank our 
many correspondents for their kind words in praise of this 
work. 



10 



CHAPTER ONE 
DUCKS FOR BUSINESS 

The Pekin is queen. — Other varieties and their character^ 
istics, briefly summarized. — Duck raising worth all one's 
time and attention, because it is profitable in proportion 
to the number raised. — Our ducks have web feet, but not 
the desire to swim. — Pond not needed. — Ducklings ready 
for market in only ten weeks. — Cost of raising them 
SIX to ten cents a pound, including labor. — Profit of fifty 
cents a duckling to be figured. — Ducks have no lice, no 
diseases, and hawks will not carry off the young. — Food 
they eat is the cheapest fed to any live-stock. 

The white Pekin is the queen of all ducks. This breed 
was brought to America from China, where they are raised 
now, and highly esteemed. The first specimens of 
Pekins were imported fifty years ago. In this com- 
paratively short period, a great deal has been done to 
improve the size and breeding qualities of this variety. 

Other varieties of tame ducks are the white Aylesbury, 
Indian Runner, white Muscovy, colored Muscovy, colored 
Rouen, black East India, black Cayuga, blue Swedish, 
Crested White, gray Call, white Call. 

Everything written in this book applies to the white 
Pekin strain which we have developed. These teachings 
do not apply to the other above-named varieties. Com- 
mercially, we believe in the Pekin only. The other 
varieties may be bred for show-room or for amusement, 
but as to their money-making qualities we are in doubt. 
We have no doubts as to our Pekins. They are easily 
raised in great numbers and are in active demand in the 
markets, and sold at a large profit. 

America leads in the development of the Pekin. The 
duck breeders in England are few and far between. They 

II 



HOW WE MAKE DUCKS PAT 

have experimented most with the Aylesburys. The 
Pekins mature more quickly than the Aylesburys and their 
feathers come out more easily when picking. The Indian 
Runner duck is smaller than the Pekin and has dark pin- 
feathers. It is not so salable as the Pekin; side by 
side in the markets the Pekin will beat it in looks, size and 
price. The Indian Runner is a good layer but this does 
not offset the other points mentioned. Muscovy ducks 
are fighters and hard to handle. Gray and white Call 
ducks are bantams bred for the show-room but never 
for profit. The black East India is another bantam 
variety, seldom weighing more than two pounds. The 
other above-named varieties are rare. 

In disposition, as well as size, quick maturity and 
fecundity, the Pekin is exceptional. Pekins do not 
quarrel. They are easily driven and handled. 

Duck raising should be entered into not for amuse- 
ment or for a pastime, but to make money. It is worth all 
of one's time and attention and will richly reward the 
earnest, methodical worker. The main thing is to know 
how to do the work and then do it. We have tried to 
make this book so simple and plain that there can be no 
question as to procedure. There are breeders of ducks 
now in many parts of the country who have been working 
with poor stock, and largely by guesswork, and what they 
could learn by experience. Comment on duck raising 
as given in the periodical press from time to time is for 
the most part absurd, written by inexperienced experi- 
menters groping in the dark. Many of these experi- 
menters are breeding the common, or puddle ducks, or 
the light-weight ducks of colored plumage, all of inferior 
size and fed on lake or sea-shore fish until the flesh tastes 
more or less fishy. 

Our strain is as different from the common ducks as 
day is from night. Our birds are what we have made 
famous as the cross-bred, white-feathered Boston duck- 
lings, fattened on grain and beef scraps, weighing five to 
six pounds when marketed at ten weeks of age. We have 



DUCKS FOR BUSINESS 

shipped this breeding stock to beginners as well as experi- 
enced breeders, and we find that a profitable success is 
made with them. 

We do not ask anybody to try what we have not done 
ourselves. Ducks have been a gold mine for us. We 
have done it as the ordinary breeder would do it, with 
common, plain work, shipping to an every-day market. 
For ten years we have been of the opinion that the advan- 
tages of this business for the good of all should be made 
known, and we are ready to do our best in this line now. 
We ask a hearing by calm, sober, common-sense people. 
We stand behind all statements we make, and guarantee 
that they are the simple truth. 

Perhaps the most surprising point, to the average 
reader, is that our ducks are raised without water. Don't 
think you must have a pond or brook on your place. A 
farm which is good for nothing from the farmer's stand- 
point is just the place for ducks. The manure will make 
the most sterile fields productive enough for the green 
stufi-^ and vegetables that may be grown. 

Our ducks have web feet but we have bred out of them 
the desire to swim and bathe. The advantages of no 
swimming water were made manifest to us quickly. We 
know the methods and flocks of a few duck breeders who 
use water and we never could find that the ducks were 
better in any way. 

Perhaps you have a brook or pond. A brook is 
handy, perhaps, in that it will reduce the work of water- 
ing. But the ducks will not get any larger or fatter 
because of it. They will drink from a brook or pond, 
thereby lessening the work of their caretaker. 

Anybody raising ducks with a pond on his place will 
find that some ducks will lay eggs in the water. Unless 
the water is shallow and the eggs easily reached, this will 
be a source of annoyance and loss. As ducks lay at night, 
or early in the morning, this trouble can be overcome by 
shutting the birds up at night and not letting them into 
the water until about 9 a. m. 

13 



DUCKS FOR BUSINESS 

If you have a spring or brook with a fall so that water 
can be diverted and made to run through the duck house 
or houses, tl at may be worth trying. 

Most beginners without instruction think that ducks 
must have swimming water to thrive and, lacking a pond 
or brook, will dig a rainhole without inlet or outlet. This 
quickly gets muddy and shmy and becomes an abomina- 
tion, a menace to both ducks and owner. 

We have heard of duck raisers on the coast of Dela- 
ware, who iiav€ had trouble in the following way: The 
tides would force the stagnant marsh water back into the 
duck ranges and when the ducks got into this brackish 
water it was bad for them. Some actually would be 
poisoned and die. Look out for this stagnant, foul- 
smelling marsh water if you breed ducks on the sea-coast. 

The rice-fields of the South are ideal for ducks. They 
will pick up plenty of free nourishment there. Ducks 
are good also to go over harvest fields to pick up the left- 
behind grain. This is a suggestion for large farmers 
who breed ducks. 

Our duckhngs are not raised as a small breeder raises 
chickens. An incubator is the device which multiplies 
the money-making possibilities. In the first place, these 
modern ducks will not reproduce their young by nest- 
building and setting. They have been bred to lay eggs, 
and not to set on them. If you wish to start small and 
without an incubator, you have got to take a common, 
old-fashioned hen and set her on the duck eggs to hatch 
them out. On account of the incubators we save great 
expense by carrying only comparatively few breeding 
birds from one year to the next. You see, from each 
duck we get eggs enough to raise three-score ducklings 
that year. Every duck worth five dollars to ten dollars 
reproduces young worth three hundred dollars to six 
hundred dollars (if saved for breeders). If killed and 
sold at market they are worth three-score times the market 
price of the one duck which started the big family. These 
figures are not dreamed. We are doing it right along. 

15 



HOW WE MAKE DUCKS PAT 

A duck reproducing at that rate must be good to start, 
and must have intelhgent care and feed. 

Ducklings are on your hands only ten weeks. Then 
they vanish to market and you get your money for them, 
and their room also. This goes on day after day, raising, 
killing, shipping. There is no let-up until you get ready, 
and the markets take them all the time, as they do chickens. 
Prices for ducklings are highest in the East in April and 
May. It is not necessary to get these high prices all the 
year to make the business a success. We have taken the 
markets as they have come every month of the year, 
knowing all the while we were making a good profit, even 
when prices were at times one-half to one-third lower 
than at others. 

We know by experience the cost of raising ducklings 
(food and labor including expert pickers making from 
twenty dollars to thirty dollars a week), to be from SIX 
TO TEN CENTS A POUND, depending on the fluctuating 
prices of grain. Others say the same, including the gov- 
ernment reports from experimenters; so the reader does 
not have to take our word alone for this fundamental 
expense. 

It costs, therefore, from thirty to sixty cents to get the 
duckhng up to the market and into the market. The 
selling price is fifty cents more than this. For many years 
after learning the business by hard knocks, we have 
figured confidently on making half-a-doUar profit on every 
duckling, — that is what actually happens. 

That is what it will do for you, starting with our stock 
and following our instructions. There is no legerdemain 
about it. Nor is it ridiculously easy — do not believe that. 

Anybody can start with half a dozen ducks and drakes 
and not have a busy working day, exactly the way a few 
hens may be kept by a man working eight hours daily at 
something else. 

You can demonstrate that they are money makers with 
a few of them. To get an income of twenty dollars a 
week you must send to market forty ducklings a week ; to 

i6 



DUCKS FOR BUSINESS 

make your farm produce a profit of one hundred dollars 
a week, you must send to market two hundred ducklings 
a week. 

The cost of from six to ten cents a pound to bring a 
duckling to killing age, according to the location of the 
plant and according to the prices of grain, includes labor as 
well as food. Figuring food alone, five cents a pound 
would cover the cost. 

Of course a duckling does not eat so much when it is 
small and newly hatched as it does when it has reached the 
killing age. If you keep a duck from killing age on for 
breeding it will cost you about twenty-five cents a month 
in feed and labor to carry the duck. This is why good 
breeding stock sells for much higher prices than the killed 
ducklings. 

The labor charge is cut down in proportion to the 
increase in the number of ducks kept. The care of thirty 
thousand ducks may be divided among six men. 

Bearing in mind what we have said about cost it may 
be estimated accurately that a duckling of market age, 
weighing five pounds to six pounds, will cost to produce 
from thirty to sixty cents. 

The wholesale selling price is at least twelve cents a 
pound, depending on the market and the season. Twelve 
cents is the lowest we have ever known it here, and thirty 
cents the highest. This means that each duck will be sold for 
sixty cents to one dollar and fifty cents. A duck which 
has cost the high price to produce will sell for the high 
market price; for this is the way the market runs. This 
means that a profit of at least fifty cents a duck is going to 
be made. Everything which we ever read on ducks con- 
firms our own experience in the matter of profits, and it 
will be found invariably that the breeder shipping ducks 
to market, even on a small or large scale, makes this 
profit. The amount of profit depends on the number of 
ducks handled. 

What we say about the cost, selling price and profits is 
positively and absolutely true. We hold no brief to boom 

17 



DUCKS FOR BUSINESS 

the duck industry. We insist respectfully and most 
earnestly that we have made, and are now making, the 
profits which we say are in ducks, selhng to market only; 
and what we have done and are doing, others have done 
and are doing. Our statements will find ready corrob- 
oration from any duck breeder who is really breeding 
ducks, that is to say, who is actually turning them out and 
shipping them to market, and not playing with a small 
flock for fun, or secondary to other work. 

In speaking of these profits, we do not estimate the 
sale of breeding stock. If you keep what you raise until 
they are of breeding age, and then sell them to your 
neighbors, or to anybody, by advertising or exhibition, 
you will make more. Nor do we take account of the sale 
of duck eggs. Duck eggs are salable on account of their 
large size and good cooking qualities, and many are in the 
markets, but the big duck raiser has a better use for most of 
his eggs than the table; he has his incubator in mind. He 
wants them for seed. 

Our ducks have no lice or other vermin. They are not 
bothered by hawks. They have no diseases. Good, 
strong points, those three. Lice are a terrible nuisance 
in general poultry raising and have dissipated many a 
dream of profits. When we say that our ducks have no 
vermin on their bodies of any kind, we mean just that, and 
we say it emphatically. Why it is exactly, we do not know. 
One would imagine that a louse would live on any animal. 
Still, there are others (rabbits, for instance) which have no 
vermin. 

Hawks are an ever-present pest in many parts of our 
country. They will not touch the youngest duckhng. 

By no disease, we do not wish to give the impression 
that ducks resist all ill-treatment. Fed improperly, they 
will have diarrhoea. Kept in the sun constantly when 
little and given no shade, they will be sun-struck. Given 
a chance when very young to eat certain bugs, they will 
be killed. Allowed to become crowded and panic- 
stricken, they will get lame and otherwise injured. 



DUCKS FOR BUSINESS 

Starved, they will die like any animal. But these matters 
are absolutely under the control of the breeder, with very 
simple and sure arrangements. There will be no losses 
from what is commonly known as disease. No medicines 
or pills or drugs of any kind are of any use in the duck 
business. 

The beautiful white feathers picked from the ducklings 
before marketing are worth good money, forty-five to 
fifty cents a pound. Every twelve ducks will give a pound. 
Generally this revenue will pay the picking. 

The following food is given (See further chapters in 
this book for details.): Rolled oats, bread-crumbs, bran, 
corn-meal, flour (low-grade), beef scraps, green stuff, 
vegetables, grit, ground oyster shells. 

The rolled oats cost in New England ^3.25 to ^5 a 
barrel (one hundred and eighty pounds). This is the 
most expensive item in the ration. They are fed only to 
the youngest ducklings and to them only a brief period. 

The bread-crumbs are made from stale bread given 
away (or sold for little) by bakers. Bought in quantities 
it costs only twenty-five dollars a ton. 

The bran (also called shorts) is the outside shell or 
wrapper of wheat. It costs only twenty dollars a ton but 
in the West near the flour mills it is much cheaper. 

The corn-meal is common yellow Indian meal which 
has been ground (not cracked). It costs from ;^i to ^1.25 
per one hundred pounds in the East; in the West it is 
cheaper. 

The low-grade flour costs twenty-eight dollars a ton in 
the East; cheaper in the West. 

The beef scraps cost $2.50 per one hundred pounds. 
They form a small per cent of the ration, at a certain time. 

By green stuff is meant anything growing, like common 
grass, oats, clover, rye, millet, etc. 

The vegetables are cheap on the average farm, and are 
a fine duck food. Turnips and carrots are easily raised 
and turned into duck meat. 

The grit may be ordinary sand or gravel for a certain 

21 



HOW WE MAKE DUCKS PAT 

period in the life of the ducks, after which the cheapest 
granite grit is bought. Fancy grits costing as much or 
more than grain are not used. 

The ground oyster shells essential to the egg formation 
are the widely known common and cheap kind. 

The part which water plays in duck raising is an 
important one. It adds volume to the food and it makes 
the food cost less because it makes the same amount of 
food more filling. Ducklings are given a vast amount of 
water to drink between meals, also, and this fattens them. 
Water fattens ducks more than any other poultry — they 
absorb a lot of it in the course of a day. 

Does the reader know of anything raised on such a 
cheap and simple ration as ducks, as above described? 
No expensive grains are needed. 

That is where the profits come in. The producing cost 
is low but the selhng price is high. Even when sold to 
middlemen, the price is from three to five times the cost of 
the food. 




FIRST XURSERY YARDS 

The little ones are seen poking in the dirt and running around enjoying 
themselves. Wire netting eighteen inches high separates each pen. The birds 
do not fly at any age, nor jump from one pen to another over the netting. 

22 



CHAPTER TWO 
SHELTER, VENTILATION 

No buildings necessary to make a start with ducks on the 
average place. — Progress in the business means buildings. 
— Simple structures, all zvith dirt, not board, floors. — 
Kind of buildings needed depends on where you live, 
whether in warm South or cold North. — Run the first 
incubator in cellar of house or back room. — Dimensions 
of lumber for house construction. — Pens in the nursery 
should not be more than three feet wide. — Some things 
about ventilation important to remember. 

Until one gets a large plant in operation, buildings for 
ducks are a secondary matter. The average home place 
with a little land is big enough to make a start. Quite a 
business in ducks can be done on limited ground. (See 
our free booklet for one instance.) 

We know of duck plants where double the number of 
breeders are kept to produce less than half the number of 
ducklings we market yearly. We produce from sixty to 
seventy-five ducklings to each breeding duck a year, while 
the breeders above referred to do only about thirty. We 
relate this as proof of what a strain of Pekins will do when 
it has been built up by selection, and attention to the 
details of the breeding. It is a waste of energy, time and 
money to keep fifteen hundred birds producing eggs when 
half that number will do as well. 

Every house has a cellar or back room where the first 
incubator may be run. The few breeding ducks may be 
housed in the woodshed or small building or shack of any 
kind. Not even wire netting eighteen inches or two feet 
wide is needed to confine them; boards fifteen inches wide 
will serve. Use carriage house, barn or outhouse. The 
mature breeders can stand any amount of exposure in our 

23 






EXTERIOR OF BROODER HOUSE 

The hot water heater (coal for fuel) is in that end of the house nearest the 
eye. The brick chimney leads straight up from the heater pit. Note the 
ventilators at regular intervals in the roof. Never build a tight house for ducks 
but always provide for ventilation. 

The small structure in the foreground is a simple shelter for ducks outdoors 
to protect them from the sun and the rain. The posts are three feet high. The 
ducks know enough to go under the shade without urging, whenever their well- 
being demands that they should. 



SHELTER, FENTILJTION 

winter, but they should have the chance of getting in under 
where it is dry, and where they can squat on dry leaves or 
other bedding so as to keep their feet warm. If a freezing 
night comes and you have your breeding ducks in a very 
cold shelter, better get them into the barn or other fairly 
warm place where their eggs will not freeze. 

After April, in the North, they can lay anywhere safely 
without danger of frozen eggs. 

If you are in the South, or any State where the chmate 
is warmer than ours, you should handle your ducks, as far 
as shelter is concerned, as you observe poultry raisers do 
whom you know. Understand, the pictures and descrip- 
tions of buildings which you see in this book apply to cold 
New England. Duck breeders here put up expensive, 
substantial buildings, some with hot-water heaters, burn- 
ing coal, and the fact that they can do this, covering their 
farms with such structures, is proof of a substantial kind 
that there is money in the duck business. 

When the youngest ducklings come out of your incuba- 
tor, they need a brooder, or foster mother wooden device. 
If there is anybody who reads this book who dees not know 
what a brooder is, the picture of it will tell, and the 
machine, with the directions that go with it, will be under- 
stood at once. Brooders are used both indoors and out- 
doors. An outdoor brooder, however, should not be put 
out in very cold weather, just because it is labelled for out- 
doors. Protect it all you can in such weather by putting 
it in a shed or under cover somewhere. 

The little ones are managed in a small portable brooder 
in the same manner as described in the chapter of this 
book headed " Youngest Ducklings." What is written 
there applies to your little ones, only we describe them 
there as having a big house over their heads, whereas 
your brooder is a small house in itself. 

Progress in the duck business means buildings. There 
are single brooder houses, double brooder houses, cold 
houses, fattening sheds, incubator cellar, killing and 
shipping house, grain storehouse, and so on. 

25 




INTERIOR OF BROODER HOUSE 

This is the nursery for youngest duckhngs. The pens are three feet wide. 
Cross boards are set halfway in the pens, as pictured, so that the httle ones will 
not wander far from the hover. The board tops of the hovers are seen. (The 
milk can is on top of one section.) The hot water pipes are directly underneath 
the board tops. The pipes (bent) are for the purpose of carrying water from 
a central pressure supply so as to save labor when filling the small drinking 
fountains used for the youngest birds. 

The timbering of the brooder house is well illustrated in this picture. As 
shown, the roof is double uneven, with the long side facing the sunny, or south 
side, and the narrow roof facing the north. A house of this construction is 
made any length, to suit the number of ducklings which it is desired to handle. 



SHELTER, VENTILATION 

Ducks should always be on the ground. Do not have 
floors in any duck houses. 

The ordinary brooder house is built with an uneven 
double roof (not single roof). That is, the back roof is 
half as long as the front roof. It is high at the back to 
give walking space for the attendant; this form of con- 
struction gives headroom there. Erect the house so 
that the long side of roof will face the sun, that is, the south. 
For a house under one hundred and fifty feet long 
(sixteen feet wide) use lumber of the following dimensions: 
Studs two by three inches, plates two by four, sills two by 
six, rafters two by five, collar beams one by six. For a 
house thirty feet wide and over one hundred and fifty 
feet long, use studs two by four, sills three by five, rafters 
two by six, collar beams one by six, and for plates two 
two-by-fours spiked together. In a house thirty feet wide 
or over use collar beams two by five. A house of this 
width should have posts to hold up the roof. 

Lay the sills of all houses on posts, or brick or stone 
piers. Set the piers about five feet apart. 

In houses built with even double roof, the walk is down 
the middle, under the ridgepole, and not down the back. 
Such a house has pens on each side of the walk. 

Good, substantial duck buildings can be erected 
cheaply provided that roofing paper be used instead of 
shingles. There is a great difference in roofing papers, 
however. Many have to be painted frequently in order to 
keep them efficient, and the cost of this paint, with labor of 
applying, will soon amount to more than if shingles had 
been used at first. 

The pens in the nursery house should not be more than 
three feet wide. Some recommend that they be four, 
five or even six feet wide. Not more than fifty little duck- 
Hngs should be put into a pen, and fifty will go into a 
three-foot pen all right. Those who have built wider 
pens have found it not wise to put more than fifty into the 
pen. They will crowd together anyway, and more than 
fifty in a bunch may make trouble by walking over one 

27 



HOW WE MAKE DUCKS PAT 

another. The stronger ones will tramp over the weaker 
ones and hurt them. No lanterns are used in the nursery 
at night to keep the ducklings from crowding, because the 
little ones are under the brooder covers, shut in the dark- 
ness, where the lantern light could not penetrate anyway. 

In a house with pens only three feet wide, of course 
the ducklings should not be kept longer than three weeks. 
After that age they should be transferred to more roomy 
quarters. 

Ventilation. Ducks need fresh air, and in building the 
houses provision should be made for ventilation. Tight 
houses are not to be built. 

If you have a tight house full of ducks, and keep them 
there three or four days and nights in bad weather, the 
inside of the house will grow very warm, and ammonia 
from the manure will rise, making your own eyes and the 
eyes of the ducks smart. 

Every one-hundred-foot house should have two ven- 
tilators through the roof, and also should have windows 
at the back to be opened when needed. These windows 
should be managed according to the weather. 

Early in the morning, when you go into a house filled 
with ducks, you will see the hot air and ammonia fumes 
going off from'the ventilators. 

If no provision whatever is made for ventilation, and a 
large number of ducks are kept in a house, the air will get so 
bad that some ducks actually will go blind from the irrita- 
tion of their eyes by the ammonia rising from the manure. 

When the weather in the spring begins to get warmer 
so that there is no danger of the eggs freezing, take out the 
windows entirely, so that the air will circulate freely from 
that time on, all through the house. Nail laths or wire 
netting over the windows to prevent the ducks from getting 
out at night, and also to prevent cats and other animals 
from getting in. You must manage the windows so that 
the eggs will not freeze. Be governed by the time of 
year and the weather. 



28 



CHAPTER THREE 
CARE OF BREEDING STOCK 

'Twenty-jive ducks and five drakes should he put in each 
pen. — Pens separated by boards inside the house and by 
wire netting outdoors. — Growing food is the same they 
had while at killing age. — Fed twice a day and given 
plenty of water. — Whole corn in the ration to strengthen 
the layers. — Bedding the pens for winter. — How to pre- 
pare the vegetable food. — Ducks are fond of worms y 
and root after them greedily. — Lanterns necessary at 
night. — Ducks enjoy snow. — Breeders lay better in 
winter if let outdoors daily. — Price tells whether stock 
offered for sale for breeding is young and good or old and 
played out. 

Ducks and drakes which we sell you for breeding, and 
ducks and drakes which after the first year you save for 
breeding stock, should be handled as this chapter advises. 
If in winter, house them. 

Thirty head should be put in each pen: twenty-five 
aucks and five drakes. Allow ten square feet for each 
bird. That is to say, the thirty birds should have a space 
of three hundred square feet. A pen containing three 
hundred square feet would be twenty feet by fifteen feet 
in size, or ten feet by thirty feet. This is the space inside 
the house. Each outside yard for a pen of that inside 
size should have from thirteen hundred to two thousand 
square feet. If the pen is fifteen feet wide then outside 
the house it should be close to one hundred and thirty 
feet long. An outside yard ten feet wide and twenty 
feet long is not long enough. Yards for thirty head 
should be fifteen feet wide and ninety feet long. 

The pens are separated from each other by wire netting 
which should be two feet wide. Eighteen inches is not 

29 




ON GRASS 

When the duckUngs are crowded out of the nurseries by the on-coming 
hatchings, they are put out on the range. If they are kept for breeders, they 
are allowed to stay on the grass. Ducklings to be killed, however, are taken 
off the grass two weeks before killing time and placed on dirt. If allowed to 
stay on the grass, their flesh will be yellow, not white, as it should be, and as 
the markets demand. 

On meadow land, ducks of the size and age shown above have a fine time 
grubbing for worms. They do not scratch the surface like a hen, but get down 
under the dirt with their bills and grub. They eat worms greedily, as many as 
they can stuff into themselves all day long, until the food passage is distended 
to large size. This diet of worms cuts down the regular feeding ration and has 
a good effect on the breeding qualities of the stock, not only in producing 
more eggs, but influencing the fertility to a remarkable degree. 



CARE OF BREEDING STOCK 

wide enough for these big ducks, ei^pecially when snow 
covers the ground. The proper size of wire netting is No. 
19, two-inch mesh or three-inch mesh. The next finer 
size of wire, No. 20, is not stiff enough. 

In building these outside pens with the 24-inch wire 
netting, drive the wood stakes first, then tack the wire 
netting on with galvanized iron staples. Do not drive 
the staples clear home. Drive them down three-quarters 
of the way so that when you wish you can pull out these 
staples with a cotton hook. A very handy tool in handling 
the wire netting and staples is a hammer and staple puller 
combined. Do not nail the wire netting tight to the 
stakes and later pull up stakes and wire netting together 
and roll them into a bale. You will find this awkward and 
clumsy work. A roll of wire netting and stakes ninety feet 
long is hard to manage. The staples should be pulled 
out and saved and the netting rolled up separately. The 
stakes should be loosened with a sledge hammer and 
pulled up and out of the way. This is done before you 
plough up or spade up the yards previous to sowing them 
down to rye or other green stuff. 

A good time in northern latitudes to plough up the 
yards is in August and the rye is then sown. In many 
places in the West winter wheat should be sown instead of 
rye. In the South wheat should be sown. Wheat should 
also be sown in California. In this matter of sowing green 
stuff you will be guided by what you see around you in 
your State. 

Inside this house where the breeders are kept use 
board partitions two feet high, not wire partitions. These 
board partitions will prevent the wind from blowing in 
draughts. 

Either wooden troughs or wooden pails may be used for 
giving the birds water in and out of this house. A gal- 
vanized iron pail specially made so as to have a wide base 
is the best. The ducks would tip over the ordinary pail 
whose base is narrower than its top. The ducks do not 
climb into the pails. They do not try to take a bath. 

31 



HOW WE MAKE DUCKS PAT 

They use them only to drink from. Always when giving 
them water, provide a vessel deep enough so that the water 
will reach above the nostrils and give the birds an oppor- 
tunity to clean out their nostrils in the water. 

Two food boards are enough for a pen of thirty head, 
each board being five feet long and twelve inches wide, 
with a three-inch strip nailed around the edges. Two 
gallons of water should be given at a time for a pen holding 
thirty birds. 

Ducks saved for breeders are fed on the same food 
which they had while growing to killing age, but instead 
of being on a dirt range they should be on a grass range. 

This food is given to them twice a day, morning and 
evening. They should be watered more often during the 
day. This water is an important factor in their growing. 
They can be watered five times a day in addition to the two 
times at which they feed. The value of water is strikingly 
seen in the case of strawberries. By giving plenty of 
water to his berries the strawberry grower can double the 
size of his berries. 

This food for the birds saved for breeders is as follows 
(by measure): Vegetables, ten parts; green stuff (or cut 
dried clover), ten parts; beef scraps, ten parts; low-grade 
flour, twenty parts ; bran, twenty parts ; corn-meal, thirty 
parts. In addition, grit and shells and a pinch of salt 
should be put in. About one per cent of grit is enough, 
also one per cent of shells. For salt, use the common fine 
table salt. Do not use the coarse salt such as is used in 
making ice-cream. That is too coarse. Nearly all 
animals need salt to keep them in a healthy condition. 
It will improve their appetites and keep their blood in good 
order. 

About once a week put into the ration one per cent of 
ground charcoal. The object of this charcoal is to 
sweeten and clean the stomach of the bird. It corrects 
any acidity in the stomach. 

The food ingredients above are mixed up dry first so as 
to get them thoroughly stirred up, then water should be 

32 



CARE OF BREEDING STOCK 

added until the mixture becomes lumpy but not sloppy. 
Test it by picking up a handful. It should be lumpy 
and crumble but should not stick to the hands. If it 
sticks to the hands, it has too much water in it. 

Use one of your food-pails to measure the various 
ingredients. 

Feed the mixture as soon as you have it mixed. In 
the winter tirne, to save labor in the morning, you can mix 
at night and have it all ready to feed in the morning. 

A pen of thirty ducks should eat about a pailful of 
this at each feeding. 

When ducks are laying well, they should be given a 
quart of whole corn at noon. We mean that each pen of 
thirty ducks should have a quart of whole corn. They like 
it and begin to ask for it about noontime, each day. The 
object of this whole corn is to stimulate and fortify the 
system. Cut open a duck's egg after it has been germi- 
nating two weeks and you see the large amount of blood 
in it. Draining this out of the duck at the rate of one egg 
a day is quite a strain on her system and the corn is fed' 
especially to strengthen the bird. 

Clean food is essential. Do not let the food boards get 
dirty. When the ducks are through feeding turn the food 
boards over, face down, so as to keep them clean. 

It is said that you can get hens and pigeons too fat to 
lay, but this is not true of ducks. By overfeeding a hen 
you can stop her laying but you cannot overfeed a duck 
so as to stop her laying. 

The pens inside the cold house should be bedded when 
necessary. For bedding, hay, straw, sawdust, meadowl 
hay, leaves or baled shavings can be used. The shavings 
are best. They are cheaper and more convenient to 
handle. A bale of them weighing from ninety to one 
hundred pounds costs only about twenty-five cents. 

This bedding should be put down inside the pens in 
the house to a depth of one inch to start. The foundation 
is dry sand or gravel. A new layer of bedding should be 
put down twice a week on top of the old bedding. It is 

33 




FOOD-MIXING MACHINE 

This is really a machine used by bakers for mixing dough, but it is just 
what is wanted for mixing the ration for ducks. This size cost three hundred 
and twenty dollars, but it saves the labor of two men. There is a smaller size 
sold at half that price. The mixer shown in above picture is run by power, a 
gasoline engine. The steel hopper is stationary and the mixing is done by 
two horizontal revolving metal paddles, moving in opposite directions. 



CARE OF BREEDING STOCK 

not necessary to clean out the old shavings. If the pens 
are cleaned out with a fork twice a year, that is enough. 

The bedding should be changed on some fair day when 
the ducks are outdoors out of the way. Do not change 
the bedding while they are inside of the house, for if you 
do it will frighten them. 

The ducks tread down the manure and shavings 
into a hard layer. The peculiarity of this manure (for the 
mass is nearly all manure) is that it does not heat and 
ferment in the peiis indoors but when you throw it out- 
doors in a pile it does heat and ferment. It is a splendid 
dressing for lawns or for general use about the farm, same 
as any manure. It is very rich and vegetation to which it is 
applied will thrive luxuriantly. 

Grow vegetables in the summer to feed to the ducks in 
the winter. Anything in the vegetable line is good, such 
as turnips, carrots, mangels, cabbages, small potatoes and 
beets. A change in the food can be made with advantage 
every other day, giving the same vegetables to the birds 
only three times a week. For a large number of ducks, a 
great labor-saving machine is a vegetable cutter. Run 
the vegetables through the cutter so that when they come 
out they will be in pieces about three-eighths or one-half 
an inch square. The ordinary hand cutter is sufficient 
even for a big lot of ducks. It is not necessary to run the 
cutter by power. After the vegetables have been cut, 
boil them in kettle, tank or caldron. Small potatoes 
should be boiled and then mashed while hot with a pestle, 
skins and all. The vegetables should be boiled until they 
are soft. It takes carrots about two hours boiling to 
soften. 

Cut clover for ducks costs about ^1.50 per one hun- 
dred pounds. It is cut clover which has been cured dry. 

Ducks use their bills in rooting as pigs root with their 
snouts. Loam frequented by a flock will get to look as if 
a harrow had been run over it. Ducks root to get grubs 
and worms, which they love and which do them good, 
making their eggs more fertile. Hens scratch the surface 

35 



HOW WE MAKE DUCKS PAT 

of the ground only, but ducks get under the surface. 
A newly ploughed field or a swamp is much enjoyed by 
ducks. They will root there until they are filled clear to 
the neck with worms. Insect life of all kinds is relished. 
If a young duckling by chance eats a bee or a hornet, the 
duckling will be injured or perhaps killed. There are 
many homes with orchards, sink-spout or a little meadow 
where a flock of ducks would be very much at home and 
have a fine time. It is good business to turn ducks into 
such places because the worms cut down the grain bill and 
are just so much clear gain in cost. 

The proper number of ducks (which you are saving for 
breeding) to be kept out doors in the summer in one flock 
is one hundred. Do not keep more than one hundred on 
one grass range. If you do, they are more liable to run 
over each other in case of fright or panic and hurt their 
wings. 

The grass range for one hundred ducks should be at 
least one hundred and fifty feet long and fifty feet wide. 

The ducks are up and about all night long more or less. 
They rest in the sun in the daytime, but at night they do 
not care to be absolutely tranquil. 

During a black night with no moon they are liable to 
take alarm and crowd over one another in fright in a 
corner of the pen and this will result in injured wings and 
lameness of some of the birds. To avoid this a lantern 
should be lighted and hung from a limb of a tree in the 
grass range or from a wooden post planted in the middle 
of the grass range. The light from this lantern will 
enable the birds to see the pen and one another and they 
do not take alarm nor crowd. The oil in the lantern lasts 
easily all night long. The lantern should be filled with 
oil every day. This item of kerosene oil for the lanterns 
is a small one even on big plants. 

Some breeders with fancy houses and pens, who have 
electric light on their premises, also have electric Ught for 
their ducks, having one small twelve or sixteen candle- 
power bulb for each pen. 

36 



CARE OF BREEDING STOCK 

Ducks in a new home or even ducks in their old home 
do not lay eggs together all at once. Given a certain 
flock of ducks, if half of them are laying by February first, 
that is doing very well. One month later all of them may 
be laying. We are speaking of our latitude now, remem- 
ber. In southern latitudes like that of Virginia, for 
example, ducks begin to lay earher. Birds that are 
hatched in March begin laying in August. This is true 
all through the South and on the Pacific coast. 

Our ducks do well in Canada. Unlike hens, they are 
fond of snow. They will wade around in the snow and 
slush and enjoy getting out on snow during the daytime, 
even in the coldest weather. However, to get eggs from 
them, their feet should be kept warm and this means that 
in cold, snowy places like Canada they should not be 
allowed to stand on the snow all the time but should be 
protected by being given a chance to go inside a house. 

The breeding ducks will lay better if you let them out- 
doors every day during the winter, except when it is 
bitterly cold. If there is water in the yards which has not 
frozen, or which had been melted by the sun, they will play 
in it and it will not hurt them. After a fall of snow, it is 
well to shovel about ten feet from the house out into the 
pens so that they will have a space to rest in during the 
day without being Hable to cold feet. They will play on 
the snow but they will not lay so well when their feet get 
cold. Of course they know enough to court the bare 
ground in preference to the snow, and you do not spend 
any time driving them from the snow to the dirt. 

We beheve in keeping the old birds breeding and lay- 
ing for two full years, or until they are twenty-eight to 
thirty months old. Then they can be sold off for market. 
If sold alive, they will bring from eight to nine cents a pound 
— if dressed, from eleven to twelve cents a pound. They 
are not worth so much as a duckling because they are old 
and tough. They can be told by their extra large size, the 
darker color of the bill, and the hardness of the breast- 
bone. The breastbone of a duckling at killing age is not 

37 



HOPT WE MAKE DUCKS PAT 

hard, but soft — it is only gristle. We do not keep breed- 
ing ducks at work longer than two years because they have 
done a lot of work by the end of that period and are not 
equal to any more. At any rate, with plenty of young 
stock coming along all the time, there is no need of taking 
the risk of infertile eggs. You can always find live ducks 
of breeding age advertised for sale, but the price tells 
whether they are young stock suitable for breeding, or the 
old, wornout birds, good only for the pot. If the price is 
one to two dollars each, you can be sure that the birds are 
not good for breeding, but are castaways, no longer wanted 
by their owner, who is trying to get rid of them alive for 
something above the market price for killed old birds. 
Remember, a bird of breeding age is two or three months 
older than a duckling of the killing age. No breeder can 
afford to feed and keep his choice birds that length of 
time, culling out unfavorable specimens meantime, and 
sell them at low prices, if he has any reputation for breed- 
ing, and pays his bills. If he wanted the one dollar selling 
price with the least cost price to himself, he would have 
sold the duckling to market at killing age. The fact that 
he has kept the bird for months beyond the killing age and 
then offers it for one or even two dollars shows that he is 
letting it go at less than cost, and therefore he is getting rid 
of it because he has no further use for it. It is not right 
for anybody to sell such stock alive, representing that it 
is good for breeding. The market for prime young breed- 
ing stock always is steady at good prices. 



38 



CHAPTER FOUR 
SEX, PAIRING, BREEDING 

How to tell the duck from the drake. — Signs of pair- 
ing. — Birds are giants sexually. — How to corner the 
bird you wish, and how to pick it up. — JSlever walk 
through a flock of ducks. — Definition of a yearling. — 
Selection of breeders. — Three-legged and four-legged 
birds and other freaks. — Do not do any inbreeding. 
— Stock should be outbred, choosing the best specimens 
from each pen. — When new blood is needed. — Do not 
start with scrub stock, for if you do it will take you 
years to accomplish what you can have at the begin- 
ning by more judicious buying. 

The duck is distinguished from the drake both by 
sight and by hearing. 

The drake, when full-feathered perfectly, has in his 
tail-feathers one feather which curls up as shown in the 
picture. This is not an invariable test because sometimes 
the curl feather may have been pulled out, or lost out from 
moulting or other cause. The curl feather shows on the 
drake when he is four months old and it is a sign of 
puberty; in other words, that he is ready for breeding. 

A duck quacks, but a drake does not. The drake 
makes a noise — it is a sort of low, rasping, hissing-like 
noise hard to describe, but much different from the quack 
which the duck makes, and which you can instantly 
distinguish. 

A drake is generally larger than the duck, but not 
always. 

The best and quickest way to distinguish the sex of a 
bird is to pick it up by the neck and listen to the noise 
which it immediately makes. When we are examining a 
pen of them rapidly, we never take time to look for the 

39 




DRAKE, SHOWING CURL FEATHER 

This photograph of a drake shows the curl feather in the tail which is first 
seen at puberty and is the mark of the sex. The ducks do not have it. Some- 
times a drake will be found without this curl feather, which may have been lost 
in moulting, or have been pulled out. In examining a lot of birds, the quickest 
way to tell the sex is to pick them up one by one by the neck and listen to 
the noise or note which each makes. See page 39 for further particulars. 



SEX, PAIRING, BREEDING 

curled tail feather. We pick each up by the neck, one 
after the other, and listen to the note, or noise, made by 
each, the decision being made instantly. 

Fertilization Necessary. The act of copulation (con- 
nection) of the male and female is a plain, unmistakable 
ceremony, same as in the case of rooster and hen, and not 
so blind as in the case of the smaller birds. We think we 
ought to discuss this subject because it is a very important 
one, the foundation of the business. Ducks will lay eggs, 
but not fertile eggs, unless they have had intercourse with 
a drake. We have known a beginner to run an incubator 
the specified time filled with eggs laid by ducks with which 
no drake was allowed to run; result, no ducklings from said 
eggs, which was quite a puzzle to the beginner until she 
thought the matter over. Some people have no imagina- 
tion, or take everything for granted, or are actually 
ignorant about the simplest things. Given a duck's egg, 
it does not follow that the egg is fertile. The beginner 
should be sure that the eggs which he puts into the incu- 
bator come from ducks which have received the attentions 
of drakes. It is not uncommon for incubator experi- 
menters to fill up the machine with eggs bought at a 
grocery store. These beginners do not know, or seem to 
care, whether eggs have been fertilized or not. 

The duck in love-making makes the first move by 
, bowing her head low, then the drake bows his head low. 
They bow faster and faster; the duck squats and permits 
the drake to mount her. He seizes her with his bill by the 
back of her head, wearing the feathers off as the season 
progresses. Connection being quickly performed, the 
drake drops, or falls, from the duck, and bolts away from 
her five or six feet, then stops. 

When you see the ducks and drakes bowing to each 
other, this is the sign that they wish to pair, and will, then 
or soon. 

The first active period of heat comes on when the duck 
or drake is about five months old. In excessive heat, and 
without drakes, ducks sometimes will mount each other, 

41 



HOW fVE MAKE DUCKS PAT 

acting like two cows, or two female rabbits. Do not be 
led astray in the matter of sex by observing such actions. 

One service of drake to duck will fertilize a dozen eggs. 
One drake will attend five ducks. Twenty-five ducks 
to five drakes is the most successful proportion, no more. 

Drakes have no preference for a certain duck in their 
love affairs. As a rule, they do not quarrel among them- 
selves over a duck or ducks, or interfere with one another. 
Sometimes all the drakes in a pen except one will annoy or 
persecute that one. He seems to make all the rest jealous 
or irritable unanimously, and they unite to prevent him 
from paying attention to any duck in the pen. Such a 
drake should be removed from the pen, as the others will 
make his Hfe miserable. 

The drakes are strong, and one can force a duck to 
have connection against her will. This is not true of most 
animals. It is best not to interfere with him. At first, 
the ducks will invite him; as the period goes on, they will 
not. The drakes act in a bold, aggressive manner all the 
time except when they do not wish to pair. Then they 
go about with their heads and necks drawn in. When 
they are making love, they extend their heads and necks, 
and walk proudly. 

The drakes keep cleaner and whiter than the ducks. 
Their bills are a darker orange color. 

Drakes and ducks are stronger sexually than other 
animals their size, or anywhere near their size, and their 
reproductive work proves it. The testicles of the drake 
(inside the body) are of extraordinary size, as large as eggs 
or lemons. The duck lays an astonishing number of the 
big, fertile eggs. 

How to Catch Ducks. Suppose you wish to pick out 
certain ducks or drakes from a pen, for breeding or for 
killing, or for examination, or for any purpose. Do not 
go at it single-handed. Get a helper. Also a board ten 
feet long and a foot wide. Give your helper one end of 
the board and you take the other end. Both you and your 
helper then walk to a corner of the pen, holding the board 

42 



SEX, PAIRING, BREEDING 

between you, driving the ducks along ahead of the board 
into the corner. Then you can reach the duck or drake 
you wish and pick her or him up by the neck. Never 
attempt to drive more than twenty at a time into a corner. 

How to Pick Up Birds. (This does not apply to 
youngsters, but only to the grown ducks and drakes.) 
Always catch a bird by the neck, in a firm grasp. Never 
pick up a bird by the body. If you do you will make 
trouble for yourself and the duck. You are Hable to bend, 
or twist, or dislocate or break the bones of the wings and 
legs. You can carry three or four ducks, or more, as 
many as you can lift, between two hands, in front of your 
body. Do not be afraid of strangHng the ducks or break- 
ing their necks. 

The above applies only to birds beyond the age of four 
weeks. Little ones just out of the incubator can be 
gathered by armfuls or apronfuls. From one to four 
weeks of age they can be handled best by picking them 
up with the hand around the body, and this will not hurt 
them. 

Walk Around, not Through. Never walk through a 
flock of ducks, young or old. Always go around them. 
An inexperienced person always will try to go through a 
flock, which will confuse the ducks, and some will crowd 
under his feet and will get hurt either by his feet or by 
themselves as they jostle one another. Just walk slowly 
and take your time and they will get by you. Do not rush 
around among them. 

What a Yearling is. A yearling duck is not a duck 
that has lived a year, but a duck which has passed through 
one year's work. For example, a duck may be hatched 
in March, but she will not be a yearling duck the following 
March. She will not be a yearhng duck until the end of 
the second December following the March in which she 
was hatched. By that time she has passed through one 
year's laying. 

Selecting Breeders. The selection of breeders should 
be going on all the time while you are killing. Select the 

43 




Figure 1. Figure 2. 

HOW TO HANDLE LIVE BIRDS 

This is the way to pick up and carry the live ducks and drakes which are 
four weeks old or more. (Do not handle the little ducklings just out of the 
incubator in this manner.) Catch the birds by the neck in a firm grasp, as 
shown in Figure 1. Never pick up a bird by the iDody. If you do you will make 
trouble both for yourself and the duck. Carry them from pen to pen, or 
from pen to killing-house, as shown in Figure 2. Do not fear that you will 
strangle the ducks or break their necks. 

You can carry three or four birds, or more, as many as you can lift, 
between two hands, in front of your body. 



SEX, PAIRING, BREEDING 

very best and save them for breeders and kill the balance 
for market. To examine a bird in order to find out 
whether it should be saved for breeding, pick it up by the 
neck, look at it and feel of it. 

In selecting breeders, first look for the largest, but do 
not take a large bird that is sluggish in behavior. The 
big, active ducks make the best breeders. Do not take 
any birds which have black feathers. Black feathers are 
not necessarily a sign of bad blood. They may be what 
is known as a " throw-back " in the breeding or a " sport," 
liable to come out in any breeding, no matter how pure 
the stock is. 

In breeding large numbers of ducks there will occa- 
sionally be freaks, such as three-legged and four-legged 
ducks. We have seen three-legged and four-legged ducks 
grow until we killed them for market. The supplementary 
legs were not as large as the two legs on which the duck 
walked, but were dwarfed. 

Sometimes a duck will be found with more than one 
egg orifice. We have seen freak ducklings with as many 
as five egg orifices. 

No Inbreeding. We do not do any inbreeding. Our 
stock is cross-bred. In the years that we have been build- 
ing up our strain, we have greatly increased the size of 
the breast and the depth of the keel. By poor selection 
of breeders from year to year and thoughtless inbreeding, 
some breeders of Pekins of our acquaintance have weak- 
ened their stock, and cannot now produce the bird they 
ought. 

The breeder should aim to introduce new blood into a 
certain pen or pens every other year, to keep up the size 
and vitality. A drake which, for example, has served 
three to five ducks for two seasons should be replaced by 
another at the end of that time. 

We do not do any pedigree or record-keeping. Such 
drudgery is a waste of time and is a wholly unnecessary 
detail. By separating the birds into flocks, each with its 
drake or drakes, there cannot be inbreeding. 

45 



HOW fVE MAKE DUCKS PAT 

It is surprising what improvements a duck breeder, if 
he is careful and intelligent, can make in his flock in size 
and good laying qualities, by selection of the best speci- 
mens from year to year. We have got our birds up to the 
point where they produce twice the number of fertile eggs 
which the earlier generations did years ago, and the birds 
have a longer and deeper keel, and weigh more. These 
are important factors in money making, especially the 
matter of fertility. Those who start with our breeding 
stock get the benefit of the years of study and selection 
we have done. They should continue the work with their 
own breeding stock, remembering to save for breeders 
only the largest and best birds. 

Do not get the idea that you can buy any kind of a 
white Pekin duck and in quick time build up a strain of 
superior size and breeding qualities. You might just as 
well try to breed a race-horse out of common drudge 
horses. The blood that makes for size and fertility can 
be produced only by years of effort. It is much better to 
start with a trio of stock at ten dollars a head than to buy 
a bargain lot at two or three dollars apiece, or even less, as 
they are sometimes sold. The precious seed eggs from 
first-class stock only are what you wish to secure from the 
ducks you are breeding. By buying our breeding stock 
you jump over years of effort which you will have to go 
through if you start with scrub ducks picked up at bird and 
poultry stores, or bought here and there of anybody who 
happens to have a few ducks. 



46 



CHAPTER FIVE 

THE EGG 

Laid at night by the breeding birds. — Gathered in basket 
in the indoor pens. — Washed in cold zvater. — Handled 
occasionally so that they tuill not spoil. — Selected for the 
incubator. — Turfjed twice daily in incubator to give 
new albumen to the germ. — Tested by lamplight. — 
They pip on the, twenty-fourth day. — Hatch should be 
complete on the twenty-eighth day. — Leave the duck- 
lings in the incubator until they dry, then take them to 
the brooder. 

Shut up the breeding ducks and drakes at night and 
do not let them out until eight o'clock the next morning. 
They lay their eggs during the night and early morning. 
By eight o'clock in the morning they have all laid. 

Fill the water pails in the outside yard and let the ducks 
out to drink, then go from pen to pen inside the house and 
gather up the eggs. 

Sometimes a very cold night will come on in our lati- 
tude. In that case it is necessary to go around as soon as 
you can in the morning to get the eggs, so that they will 
not have a chance to freeze. (This applies only to a cold 
house. In a warm house you would not have to watch 
out for frozen eggs so carefully.) One frosty morning, 
in the value of eggs spoiled by freezing (provided you are 
not on guard), would more than pay for the heater necessary 
to warm the house. 

If the w'eather is stormy outside, you do not let the 
ducks out of the house, but go around from pen to pen 
among them slowly gathering up the eggs. Do not go 
hurriedly, for if you do you will scare them. 

Use a basket to gather up the eggs. Some eggs are in 
the shavings where the ducks have hidden them. Sometimes 

47 




WHERE THEY LAY THEIR EGGS 

This house is heated by hot water so that the eggs will not be frozen on 
cold winter nights. The pens have a dirt (not board) floor and shavings are put 
down for bedding. The partitions between the pens are not made of wire 
but of boards, so that the pens will not be draughty. The ducks lay at night. 
Some try to hide their eggs in the shavings but they are easily found, and 
the same ducks will try to hide them in the same places the following night. 
Let the birds outdoors at eight o'clock in the morning and then go from pen 
to pen and gather the eggs in a basket. 



THE EGG 

a duck will make a nest three or four inches under the 
shavings, then lay in the nest and cover the eggs with 
shavings. She will do this night after night in the same 
place, so after you have once located the place you can go 
to it morning after morning unfaiHngly. Most of the 
eggs are in plain sight, on top of the shavings. 

The first eggs of a duck are infertile. After she 
has laid several eggs then they begin to run fertile. The 
first eggs should be used for cooking or sold at market, 
where they bring from thirty cents a dozen up. They 
almost invariably bring more than hens' eggs and there 
is a good demand for them. They are a trifle diff^erent in 
taste from hens' eggs. There is some prejudice against 
duck eggs in some markets on account of the fishy taste 
found in the eggs of common or puddle ducks. Ducks 
which are fed on grain lay fine eggs of good flavor. As 
far as cooking goes, duck eggs taste the same as hens' 
eggs and a duck egg will equal two hens' eggs. 

The number of eggs laid by the duck steadily increases. 
By February i, in our cHmate, about half of them should 
be laying. We begin to save eggs for the incubators as 
soon as we see that the production of eggs is increasing 
steadily from day to day. 

The eggs should be taken in the gathering basket to a 
cellar and washed there, as soon as gathered, in cold water 
at a temperature of about forty-five degrees. Do not use 
ice water or hot water. If you use ice water you will 
freeze or chill the germs in them. If you use warm water 
you will start the germs to growing. 

Use a cloth to wipe the eggs clean. After washing 
them, put them in a basket in the cellar and keep them 
there at a temperature of about forty-five degrees so that 
they will not freeze and so that germination will not start. 
The ordinary cellar of a house is just the right temperature. 
The air should be good in the cellar, that is to say, not foul 
or close, because the egg shells are porous. 

While they are being kept in the baskets in the cellar, 
the eggs should be handled every three or four days so that 

49 



HOW WE MAKE DUCKS PAY' 

they will not spoil. That is to say, they should be taken 
up and turned. The object of this is to prevent the 
yolk from sticking to the sides of the eggs. In warm 
weather, if the egg is allowed to stay in one position con- 
tinously, the white will get soft and the yellow will go 
through the white to the shell. 

The eggs should be kept in the cellar no longer than 
two weeks before putting them into the incubator. We 
have kept them a month, but not over two weeks is the 
best time. 

If the temperature of the cellar rises to fifty-five or 
sixty degrees, a slow process of incubation goes on inside 
the eggs. Keep the eggs over two weeks in a cellar at sixty 
degrees instead of forty degrees and they will hatch earlier 
than others. 

In selecting eggs for the incubator, do not take all of 
them. Take only the perfect eggs. Eggs should be 
rejected which are small, large, ill-shaped, and have 
holes or pit-marks. The selecting or sorting of eggs 
might be done after washing and the rejected eggs used 
for cooking. Two weeks in the cellar would not spoil the 
eggs for household use. 

Preparing the incubator. The incubator should be 
cleaned and put in order, the lamp lighted and the ma- 
chine run empty for two days at a temperature of one 
hundred and two degrees. Then put in the eggs. The 
temperature will fall at once because the eggs are cool, 
but do not fuss with the regulator. Leave it alone and let 
the temperature rise to one hundred and two degrees, as 
it will slowly in twenty-four hours. The thermometer then 
will be one hundred and two degrees again. 

After the eggs have been in the machine thirty-six hours 
take the tray out of the machine, put it on a table nearby 
and turn the eggs with fingers or hand. Run the flat 
of the hand over them so as to roll them around, stir 
them. It is not necessary to turn them an exact half- 
circle. The object of turning them is to supply new 
albumen to the germ. The embryo feeds on the white of the 

50 



THE EGG 

egg. When you turn the egg with your hand you give an 
opportunity for new food, new albumen to get to the 
embryo. A hen turns her eggs in the nest twice a day for 
the same reason instinctively. 

The little duckling is made wholly from the white of 
the egg. The albumen contains the feathers, flesh, 
everything. The object of the yolk is to furnish food for 
the duckHng during the last few days of its life in the shell. 

After that first turning of the eggs thirty-six hours 
after having being put in, the eggs should be turned 
morning and evening. 

The incubator cools off more or less while you are 
turning the eggs on the tray on the table nearby, but this 
should cause no alarm. When a hen leaves her nest, as 
she does to go off^ for food, eggs which were being covered 
in the nest are cooled off". 

Testing the eggs. On the evening of the seventh day 
after the eggs have been put in, they should be tested. 
That is to say, if you put the eggs in on Saturday they 
should be tested the following Friday. Duck eggs have a 
white shell which is transparent and it is very easy to test 
them. We have a box big enough to hold a lamp. (These 
egg-testing lamps are made and sold in various forms.) 
Our box has a hole cut in the front of it a little smaller 
than the eggs. Felting is glued around the hole so that 
in handling the eggs rapidly they will not be knocked and 
broken against the wood. 

The operator should take four or five eggs in his hand. 
He can test them very rapidly, as fast as he can pass them 
in front of the opening. The Hght is confined by the hole 
in the box and when the egg is put over the felting the 
hole is stopped and all the light from the lamp must shine 
directly through the egg. 

If the egg is a fertile one and has been germinating 
while it has been in the machine, you will see inside of the 
egg something like a spider. Veins will cover almost the 
entire egg. You can see the speck forming the eye of the 
duckling and in fact the little duckling itself. The 

51 



THE EGG 

development covers nearly the entire interior of the egg. If 
you do not see this development, you will know that the 
egg is infertile. 

If you find an egg which is cloudy or addled, and 
without the spider-like network of veins, it is not good. 
Eggs that are addled can be mashed up, shells and all, and 
fed to your growing ducks with their grain mixture. 




EGG-TESTIXG LAMP 



SEVENTH DAY 

If the egg is fertile and has been germ- 
inating in the incubator for seven days, 
you will see something like above picture. 

The white space at the end is the air- 
space. The white line all around the egg 
is the membrane just inside the shell. 



Any eggs which you find black or bad-smelling should 
be thrown away. 

The clear eggs in which you find no germ and which 
are not addled you can use in cooking, or you can sell them. 

This testing should be done in the incubator house 
alongside of the machine. In very cold weather we use 
a cloth and cover the eggs while we have them out of the 
machine so that the heat can be kept in them as much as 
possible. Test a whole trayful before putting them back 
into the incubator. Work quickly in cold weather. 

There is no more testing of the eggs, but you must turn 
them in the incubator night and morning, twice a day, 
right along until hatching. If an egg shows black while 
you are doing this at anytime, such an egg should be thrown 

53 



HOW WE MAKE DUCKS PAT 

out, for it is rotten. If when you open the incubator you 
detect a bad smell, you can find the egg which is at fault, 
if you cannot see it, by running your nose along the eggs 
held close to them until you come to the bad one. It 
should then be thrown out. 

The eggs should begin to pip on the twenty-fourth day 
after being put into the machine. When you see this 
pipping starting among the eggs, stop turning them and 
do not open the machine until the hatch is over. The 
hatch should be completed if the machine is run proper- 
ly, on the twenty-eighth day. Remove all eggs that have 
not hatched at that time, and all shells. 

The temperature of the machine for the first three 
weeks should be one hundred and two degrees, and for 
the last or fourth week one hundred and three degrees. 

In minor matters not covered by our directions given 
in this chapter, run the machine according to the direc- 
tions which go with the incubator. 

After hatching, the ducklings should be left in the 
incubator from twelve to thirty-six hours, until they have 
dried off. Just before the eggs hatch, the ducklings absorb 
the yolk and live on that for thirty-six or forty-eight hours. 
If they are taken out of the machine too quickly they are 
not hungry and will not eat. You should leave them in 
the machine from twelve to thirty-six hours so that they 
will be not only dried but hungry. 

Take them out of the machine gently. Pick them up 
or guide them with the fingers by handfuls and sweep 
them into the basket. Then remove them to the brooder 
or brooder house. The temperature of the brooder or 
brooder house should be near ninety degrees. The food 
and water should be already in the brooder before you put 
the little ducklings in from the incubator. They will be 
hungry and will go to eating and drinking at once. See 
next chapter. 



54 



CHAPTER SIX 
YOUNGEST DUCKLINGS 

How to handle and feed them from the time they leave 
the incubator until they are eight weeks old.— First 
food in the brooder or nursery. — When to feed it, how to 
feed It and how to water them. — The little birds are 
tame. — Weaning food begins on third day. — How to 
mix it and give it. — When two to three weeks old, they 
are taken from the nursery to the second brooder house. 
— When five weeks old they can go to the cola house, 
where, for the first time, outdoor feeding is practised 

You have allowed the ducklings to stay in the incuba- 
tor twenty-four hours after they have come out of the 
shells. They are double the size of a chicken and in 
appearance about twice the size of the egg-shell which 
enclosed them. 

A period of twenty-four hours in the machine dries 
them so that they are strong enough to stand on their feet. 
They have absorbed through the navel the yolk which 
surrounded them at birth and this sustains them for the 
twenty-four hours. 

At the end of the twenty-four hours put them into a 
basket and carry this basket to your brooder or nursery of 
first brooding house. Put them in the runs, which are 
three feet wide and nine feet long. 

The hot-water pipes are not on the ground but are eight 
inches above it. On top of the water pipes is a wooden 
cover, one for each pen. The object of having the hot- 
water pipes above the ducklings is to give them heat from 
the top such as they would get from under the natural 
mother. Bottom heat would weaken the legs of the duck- 
lings and is not natural. The little creatures huddle up 
closely to each other under the hot-water pipes so as to 

55 




DUCKLINGS TWO WEEKS OLD 

They are shown here in the yards of the first nursery house. When this 
picture was taken, the small slides through which the birds pass from house to 
yard were all open. These slides are left open during the day so that the duck- 
lings can pass in and out at will. At night the ducklings are driven into the 
house and the slides closed. 



YOUNGEST DUCKLINGS 

get the heat on their backs. Should they touch the hot- 
water pipes they cannot be burned. 

Take these youngest ducklings into the nursery just 
before noon, the warmest part of the day. 

Their first food has been previously placed on the food 
boards ready for them. There is a water drinking foun- 
tain in each pen, the No. i or smallest size (see page 58). 
This water dish, like the others, is arranged so that the 
duckings cannot jump into the water and get damp, and 
also so that no water can stand in it for any length of time. 
A self-feeding reservoir fountain is exactly what is not 
wanted. The water should be renewed at each feeding time. 
It is not necessary to scald the fountains but they should 
be rinsed out. They may be scalded, say once a week. 

The first food includes bread-crumbs and rolled oats. 
The rolled oats are the same as are commonly used for the 
table, costing from ^3.25 to ^5.00 a barrel, each barrel 
weighing one hundred and eighty pounds. 

The bread-crumbs are made from stale bread by run- 
ning the bread through a meat grinder. Buy dry, stale 
bread from the bakers for about one cent a pound, twenty 
dollars a ton. Also use up dry and stale home bread. 
Bread-crumbs for a small number of ducklings can be 
prepared from the bread by hand without a machine. 

Take half rolled oats and half bread-crumbs to make 
this first mixture. Take them by measure, not by weight. 
Use for a measure an ordinary quart measure if you please. 
Take one pail of rolled oats and one pail of bread-crumbs 
or two pails of rolled oats and two pails of bread-crumbs, 
and so on. Put in five per cent of good, sharp, ordinary 
sand with the bread-crumbs and rolled oats. The object 
of this sand is to provide grit, which the little ducklings 
need as well as the old ones. Two handfuls of sand to 
each pailful of mixture is what we mean by five per cent. 
Put these three ingredients, rolled oats, bread-crumbs and 
sand, into a box and mix them in the box. Then moisten 
this mixture with water, not enough to make the mixture 
sloppy, but just enough to moisten the particles. If you 

57 






No. 1 No. 2 No. 3 

W.\TER FOUNTAINS FOR DUCKLINGS 

These three sizes must be used for successful results. The smallest, or 
No. 1 size, is used for the youngest ducklings. The No. 2 size is used next. 
When the ducklings are four weeks old, the No. 3 size is used. For birds near 
killing age, or over, use an ordinary pail or water trough (see below). 

The No. 3 size fountain above is too large for the little ducklings. They 
would get inside of it and drown. The smaller sizes are not large enough for 
the ducklings after they have grown, because the water then would not be 
deep enough to reach their nostrils. The ducklings need water deep enough 
to souse their bills wholly in it, so that they can wash from their nostrils any 
sawdust or food which may lodge there. 







FOOD AND WATER TROUGHS 

These should be built in different sizes. They are used both indoors and 
out as directed. There is no hard and fast rule for their size and constructioiw 
The caretaker should use them according to the age of the ducklings. 



YOUNGEST DUCKLINGS 

have milk you can use milk instead of water because the 
ducklings will grow faster when milk is used than when 
water is used. Understand, do not make this first mixture 
sloppy. Make it damp, that is the idea. 

The above is the food for these newly hatched duck- 
lings for forty-eight hours after being put into the nursery. 
The food is there in each pen as the ducklings are put into 
each pen from the basket from the incubator. 

Do not stand and watch these little ducklings. They 
will not feed until you go away and leave them alone. The 
food is scattered on a board and the ducklings walk out 
from under the hot-water pipes to the board and eat, now 
and then going to the water fountain for a drink. The 
run-way is partitioned off half-way with a board placed 
there temporarily so that they will not wander too far from 
the hot-water pipes and get down to the window where it 
is cold. At night they are shut in completely under the 
hot-water pipes by taking this board and moving it up to 
the head of the pen, next the top board above the hot-water 
pipes. 

For the first two days, the food above described should 
be before these youngest ducklings continuously. For that 
reason, visit the nursery five times a day for these first two 
days to renew the food on the boards in the pens and to 
renew the water in the fountains. 

The food board is three feet long, the same width as the 
pen, and six inches wide. This has laths nailed on the 
ends and sides to prevent the food from sliding off or from 
being pushed off. 

Care of Brooders. The beginner should be constantly 
impressed with the importance of keeping the brooders 
scrupulously clean. Every other day the droppings and 
dirty sawdust should be removed from under the pipes. 
The best way to go at this job is from the walk side of the 
brooder. Take off the cover. With a narrow shingle, 
scrape out underneath the pipes, taking only the wet and 
dirty sawdust out, and putting it into a bushel basket which 
is carried outside when full; or, in a larger brooder house, 

59 




THOUSANDS OF YOUNGSTERS 

This shows how they look on a pleasant day out in the yards of one of the 
nursery houses. The narrow strips of wire netting which separate the pens 
cannot be seen in the picture, but they are there. Ducklings this age are quite 
an attractive sight. The small sliding doors are always up when the birds are 
out. They were dropped when the picture was taken so as to get all the 
ducklings in. 

Each pen of the youngsters is handled precisely the same as the next. In 
the fall, the wire netting is rolled up, the wood stakes pulled up and the ground 
ploughed and sown (in our latitude) to winter rye. This sweetens the ground 
as well as furnishing green food. If the birds were allowed to run on the same 
dirt year after year, and make manure upon it, the ground would become 
tainted, affecting both the size and fecundity of the stock. 



YOUNGEST DUCKLINGS 

use a wheelbarrow. As each brooder is cleaned, put in a 
thin layer of fresh, dry sawdust from a basket taken on 
your arm from pen to pen. 

The food boards should be scraped with a shingle or 
piece of tin each day to keep them respectably clean. 
Take up each board and scrape it into a basket. It will be 
covered with sawdust, refuse, etc. 

In our system of care of brooder house, this scraping 
of the food boards and washing the fountains is done 
regularly every day after the two o'clock feeding. The 
attendant goes along each pen, picking up the fountains 
and food boards and placing them on the brooder covers. 
The boards are then scraped (with a sheet iron scraper 
about six inches square) into a bushel basket, this refuse 
being thrown on the manure pile. The fountains are then 
washed and rinsed, after which they are filled with water 
while standing on the brooder tops. On a plant of large 
magnitude, three men work together doing this job. 
While the cleaning of boards and fountains is going on, 
one of the men is bedding the pens, using dry pine saw- 
dust for this purpose. When the task is completed, the 
men immediately begin putting down the fountains and 
food boards, and the duckhngs then are ready to receive 
their next food. 

The five feeding times are as follows : 6 a.m., 9 a.m., 
11.30 a.m., 2.30 p.m., 5.30 p.m. The duckhngs will get 
eager and hungry and will cry for food at each of these 
feeding times. They are not old enough to make a quack- 
ing noise, but peep. This peeping noise increases in 
volume until they are six weeks old. Then they begin to 
make a quack more Hke the old birds. 

When washing out the drinking fountains, use a rag or 
dish-cloth and two pails of water. Wash in one pail and 
rinse in the other. 

Be careful not to step on the little ducklings in giving 
the first food. They are very tame and will get all around 
your feet if you give them a chance. 

Their appetites should be kept eager. ' 

61 



HOW WE MAKE DUCKS PAT 

Do not put down too much food on the boards. The 
night feeding should be the biggest of the five because the 
food eaten then has to last them through the night. 

Be sure and keep them eager and hungry. Do not 
load up the boards with the mixture so that they will over- 
stuff themselves. Remember that for these first two days 
they are learning to eat. 

In hot weather water them twice as much as when the 
weather is cooler. Fill the fountain often. They will 
drink this water up quickly, within five or ten minutes, then 
fill the fountain up again. Do this watering always at 
each feeding. The easiest way to get the water into the 
little fountains is to pour it from a milk-can, which is better 
than a dipper because it holds more and is handled easier. 
Do not fill these milk-cans from a faucet. That would take 
too much time. Let the faucet water run into a tub and 
fill the milk-cans by dipping them into the tub. This 
saves work. 

Beginning with the third day, the food for the young 
duckhngs changes to the weaning food. Mix the same 
ingredients of food as the first two days with bran and corn- 
meal in equal parts, by measure not by weight. That is 
to say, take one measure of rolled oats, one measure of 
bread-crumbs, one measure of bran and one measure of 
corn-meal, in other words twenty-five per cent of each. 

By bran we mean wheat shells, also called shorts. It 
is the outside, flaky shell of the wheat. It costs about twen- 
ty dollars a ton in carload lots, but is cheaper in the West. 
It is a by-product of a flour mill. 

Corn-meal is common yellow Indian corn which has 
been ground, not cracked. It costs here in the East about 
the same as bran. This weaning food is given for seven 
or eight days. 

When the ducklings are seven or eight days old, cut out 
the expensive rolled oats and bread-crumbs and in their 
place in the mixture put low-grade flour, which costs about 
twenty-eight dollars a ton. 

Remember, that all these mixtures are moistened with 

62 



YOUNGEST DUCKLINGS 

water but not so as to be sloppy. They should be damp. 
When you take up a handful which has been mixed 
properly with water, it will not stick to the hands but will 
hold compactly together in a lump. 

The food which begins at seven or eight days of age 
also has green stuff and beef scraps. To summarize, then, 
prepare the food as follows: Equal parts of bran and 
corn-meal, ten per cent of low-grade flour and ten per cent 
of green stuff, such as green grass or rye or millet (which 
has been chopped up in a cutting machine or by hand in 
a pail), beef scraps five per cent, grit one per cent. The 
scraps if too coarse should be screened, the fine part being 
used for the small birds and the coarse part for the older 
ones. 

For grit use common sand and gravel off the farm for 
the first three days of the duckling's life. From then on 
use our special grit made from granite in two sizes, fine 
and medium. Use the fine grit at first and the medium 
grit as the duckling gets older. 

Keep the ducklings in the first nursery house two to 
three weeks, depending on how you are fixed for room. 
If you have a hatch coming off from the incubator, clean 
out a sufficient number of pens in the nursery to make 
room for the new-comers. 

i The nursery house has a dirt floor, not a board floor. 
This dirt (sand or gravel or dry loam or clay) should be 
in each pen with dry sawdust laid down on top of the 
sandy bottom. Carry this sawdust into the nursery house 
in a wheelbarrow and shovel it from the wheelbarrow into 
the pens, then rake it level to a depth of an inch. Use 
dry pine sawdust. Almost any sawdust except oak can be 
used. Do not use oak sawdust for if you do it will turn 
the drinking water blue as it gets off the bills of the duck- 
Hngs, and this bluish drinking water does not smell or 
taste wholesome. Pine or spruce sawdust is good. 

In the Second Brooder House. When the ducklings 
are two or three weeks old, take them in a basket, a pen at 
a time, to the second brooder house where the pens are 

63 




DUCKLINGS IN THE SUN AT MID-DAY 

These birds are seven weeks old. Youngest ducklings are harmed by the 
hot rays of the midsummer sun, and should be given a chance to get into the 
shade. Remember that ducks at all ages should have access to shade. 



rOUNGESr DUCKLINGS 

four feet wide instead of three feet wide, and ten feet long 
instead of nine feet long. 

All ducklings are fed four times a day in this second 
house at the following hours : 6 a.m., lo a.m., 2 p.m., 
5.30 p.m. This second house has a hot-water heating 
arrangement exactly like the nursery house, except that 
the pipes are further from the floor. 

The outdoor runs of this second brooder house are 
twenty feet long. It depends on the weather whether or no t 
you let the three weeks' old ducklings outdoors into these 
runs from the inside pen. On bright, sunny days, not too 
cold (if in winter) you can let them outdoors, and their 
exercise outdoors will do them good. Remember, just 
now we are talking about our latitude and our winters. If 
you live in southern latitudes or in a warmer chmate than 
ours, or if it is summer-time with you in this latitude, you 
can let the young ones outdoors more freely. Do not let 
them out in the rain or snow. 

All the feeding in this second house is done inside the 
house, same as in the nursery house. The food boards 
in this second house are larger than in the nursery. They 
are four feet long and nine inches wide or just wide enough 
to be cleaned with a shovel. Before each feeding time, 
scrape off the sawdust, refuse food, etc., from each board 
with a shovel and throw this refuse into the walk of the 
house. Every four or five days this refuse should be raked 
into a pile and carted out in a wheelbarrow. 

The No. 2 water fountains used in this second house are 
made in the same style as the fountains used in the nursery, 
only larger, and hold twice as much water. 

"When the ducklings are four weeks old, change this 
No. 2 drinking fountain to the larger or No. 3 size. 

You may ask why would not one size of water fountain 
be all right for all ages. The largest, or No. 3, fountain 
would be too large for the little ducklings. They would 
get inside of it and drown. They would also struggle to 
reach the water and would weaken themselves. The 
smallest size is not large enough for the ducklings after they 

65 



YOUNGEST DUCKLINGS 

have grown because the water then would not be deep 
enough to reach their nostrils. The nostrils of a duck are 
plainly visible. They are two open holes at the base of 
the bill. The duckhngs need water deep enough for them 
to souse their bills completely in it so that they can wash 
from nostrils any sawdust or food which may lodge there. 

To the Cold House. When the ducklings are five weeks 
old, they are taken (on a large plant) from the second 
house to a third, called a cold house, that is to say, it has no 
heating apparatus. If the weather is cold when they are 
five weeks old, use your own judgment as to putting them 
into the cold house. Wait until a warm, sunny day. It 
depends on the season and the locality. Ducks at this age 
can be driven in large flocks. 

Feed and water the ducklings outdoors in the pens of 
the cold house. They do better if fed outdoors. It de- 
pends on the weather. If you put them into the pens of 
the outdoor house in the morning of an early spring, and a 
northeast storm comes up cold and raw, drive them back 
into the house and shut the doors and windows. The 
ducklings would not know enough to go into the house 
away from the storm. They would go to meet the storm, 
as far from the house as they could get, at the end of the 
run. The rain would not drive them in. The duckhngs 
would stand up as straight as they could so as not to get 
their backs very wet, but they would not know enough to' 
go into the house. The rain would beat down upon them! 
and exhaust them and before long the httle creatures 
would fall down exhausted and this exposure might kill 
them. Remember we are talking now about the young 
ducklings. Tbo old ducklings know enough to go in out 
of the rain. When the storm breaks, they will scoot for 
the house. The ducklings eight, nine, ten and eleven weeks 
of age, and older, will stand rain in our latitude. 

May is the worst month in New England to watch for 
weather in managing young ducklings. 

The cold house is the home o^ the ducklings from five 
weeks until they are eight weeks old, when the}' are ready 

6/ 



HOfV WE MAKE DUCKS PAT 

for fattening. The object of the cold house is simply to 
keep them out of the rain and snow. In the summer 
time or in southern latitudes, an orchard which has shade 
trees will do for ducklings when five weeks old except on 
days when big storms come up. On those days the young 
ducklings must be housed. 

Distributing the Food. Where only forty or fifty 
pails of food are used daily, the best way to get it to the 
different houses and yards is by use of a wheelbarrow. 
The No. 7 size wheelbarrow will take ten or twelve pails. 
If water must be conveyed, milk-cans (previously men- 
tioned) are best to use, as the water will not spill in carry- 
ing them in the wheelbarrow. If, however, several 
hundred pails of food are used daily, a large, four-wheeled 
truck may be used to advantage, providing the land is 
level enough to allow the men to draw it, otherwise it is 
best to use a horse and wagon. 




WINTER SCENE. BROODER HOUSE 



68 



CHAPTER SEVEN 
FATTENING 

Growing to kill from eight weeks to market age. — The 
fattening sheds are simple roofs erected on dirt ground. — 
The birds are fed three times a day. — Secret of feeding 
properly the fattening mixture. — Keep their appetites 
eager. — 'Judge hy the appearance of the duckling when 
it IS fat enough to kill. — Look out for sour food. — How 
to utilize food which has soured. — How to avoid 
yellow skin. — Winter rye for green stuff. 

The fattening starts when the duckHngs are eight weeks 
old. They are driven from the cold house at this age int3 
outdoor (or fattening) sheds. These are sheds which are 
simply a roof on posts, the sides being open. The roof 
should be tight but it is not necessary to make it absolutely 
tight by shingling or paper. All that is necessary is to 
nail battens over the cracks between the boards which 
form the roof. The fattening sheds are used from the end 
of April to November i, in our latitude. In southern 
latitudes their use could begin earlier. 

In the fattening sheds, feed three times a day, morn- 
ing, noon and night, 6 a.m., 12 m., and 6 p.m. Feed a 
mixture of corn-meal, low-grade flour, beef scraps, 
oyster shells and grit, and green stuff when you have it. 
Mix the food in these proportions: Three parts of corn- 
meal, one part of low-grade flour, three-quarters of a part of 
beef scraps with about three per centof oyster shells and grit 
mixed equally, then one part of green stuff, when you have 
it. The ducklings like the looks of the mixture better and 
eat more of it when the green stuff is in it to give it color. 

This food is given until the ducklings are ten or 
eleven weeks old, when they are killed. This is a rich 
food mixture to fatten. 

69 




READY FOR FEEDING 



On a large plant, wooden pails will be found to be the best means for carry- 
ing the food to the ducks. After the food is mixed in the house, it is put into 
the pails, which are staclced up as shown. If the ground is level and a large 
number of the pails are to be transported to the ducks, a four-wheeled truck 
(not shown in picture) drawn by two men is the best device for wheeling them. 
If a smaller number of the pails are to be transported, wheelbarrows are the 
handiest. 

Wooden pails are cheaper than galvanized iron and they are better because 
they may be nested when empty and a lot of them carried by one man. Metal 
pails might be nested but their combined weight on the arms of the operator 
would be very tiresome. 



FATTENING 

The secret of feeding properly this fattening mixture 
three times a day is to feed just what will be eaten up 
clean in fifteen minutes. If there is any left over after the 
ducks have eaten briskly for fifteen minutes, the food board 
should be scraped entirely clean. When you get skillful 
at feeding from practice you will knov^ just hovv^ much to 
feed. The idea is not to give these fattening ducks too 
much food, for if you do they will not keep fat. You must 
keep their appetites eager. 

Make the morning feeding light. Make the noon feed- 
ing light. At night be more liberal. Then give them the 
food good and strong. This will last them through the night. 

Keep them eager. They ought to go to the man who 
is feeding them at feeding time. Do not disturb the ducks 
while they are feeding. Go on about your business to the 
next pen. A green man standing around the food board 
and watching them will keep them away from their food. 
Scare them off and they will not go back to the food. 

Always water before feeding. Give the water to these 
fattening ducks in water troughs built Hke illustration. 

Give the food to them on boards the width of a shovel. 
Keep the water trough close to the food board. Do not 
put it at the end of the yard, for if you do the ducks will not 
go to it to get water, especially in hot weather. They eat 
at the food board greedily and they want water every 
now and then handy, to keep them from choking. They 
do not hke water which has been standing in the sun. 
Give fresh water at each feeding time, also water between 
feedings. That is to say, this extra watering for the 
fattening birds is done at Q a. m. and 2 p. m. 

You judge by the appearance of the bird when it is fat 
enough to kill. Killing age may be at eight, nine, ten, 
eleven or twelve weeks of age. Pick up the duck by the 
neck and feel of the body. Feel of the duck's back. If it 
is fat there it is fat all over. If it is thin there, put it back 
into a pen reserved for culls. These culls should be 
examined three weeks after being thrown back to deter- 
mine whether they are then fat enough to kill. 

71 



mp:al time 

Wire netting separates these pens. (It can hardly be seen in the photo- 
graph.) These ducklings are in one of the cold houses and are six weeks old. 
(In another week they will be ready to drive into the large fattening sheds.) 

They are seen getting their food out of the boards with raised edges and 
their water (look closely) from V-shaped watering troughs. It is important to 
set the food and water troughs near each other because the birds run to the 
water after every other mouthful, both to get a drink and to wash their bills. 
In the fall, these yards, as well as the others, are ploughed and sown to green 
stuff (winter rye) in order to keep the soil fresh. 



FATTENING 

If you cannot tell by feeling of the duck whether it is 
old enough to kill, put it in a bag and weigh it. When six 
or eight weeks old it ought to weigh four pounds, or four 
and one-half pounds. At ten weeks it ought to weigh 
five and one-half or six pounds. 

When they are really fat they ought to be killed. Keep 
them longer and they are going to lose some fat. 

When they are eleven to twelve weeks of age they have 
a light moult, shedding some feathers. They lose their 
appetites and go back in weight a little. They should 
be killed and sent to market just before this light moult 
starts. 

Do not feed any sour food. Do not mix at any one 
time more food than you need at that time, or it may sour 
over night. Get the knack of feeding so as not to have to 
clean up the boards after fifteen minutes of feeding. An 
experienced man seldom makes a mistake by overfeeding. 
Sometimes in extremely hot weather the ducks' appetites 
are hard to gauge. 

This stuff which may be cleaned up after feeding 
should be scraped off, either into a pail or basket. It is 
not necessary to waste it even if it is a little sour. It 
may be mixed in and fed with new food, provided there 
is not much of it. (It is said of the duck growers in 
France that they allow the food to sour a little purposely 
for the reason that they think it fattens more quickly.) 

Novices in the duck business have trouble in the 
brooder house with duckhngs dying from sour food; 
watch out sharply for sour food there. If you should find 
any sour food there, you can get rid of it by mixing it with 
good food and giving it t3 the older birds. 

The color of the skin of a first-class duckling when 
ready for market should be white, not yellow. This is 
one of the reasons our ducks bring better prices in the 
markets. Yellow skin is caused by too much green food, 
or by letting the birds stay on green grass ground too long 
before killing. For the last two weeks previous to killing 
the duckhngs should be kept on bare (dirt) ground. The 

73 



HOW WE MAKE DUCKS PAT 

object of green food is to keep the bowels of the birds in a 
good, open, healthy condition. Too much eating of green 
and too much lying on green grass make their flesh yellow. 
In our latitude we use for green stuff much winter rye. 
We buy the seed not of a seed man, because he charges 
seed prices, but of a grain man, at grain prices. We sow 
this winter rye in the latter part of September and the first 
part of October. Sow it in September and you have a 
chance to cut it twice before freezing. The ground where 
we plant it (the runs) is so rich with the duck manure that 
the winter rye grows much faster than on the average 
farm. It does not freeze in the winter, but stays green. 
If a warm day should come and the snow melt in the 
winter, you can cut the winter rye and feed it to the ducks. 
Just before we expect a snow storm we cut it and keep it 
frozen in a building where no sun penetrates. It will keep 
well. Use as necessary. 





A . 


■Bk " ■'i^^^ W sSit- 


.. . -Q^ . .. ^jsmmmt^am 


^^ 




'L* *La^-S^ 


^^^^^^B^ l^^^^l 



FATTENING YARDS 
Road down the middle allows easy access to all pens with food and wa er 



74 



CHAPTER EIGHT • 
KILLING, PICKING, SHIPPING 

How the picker uses -first a knife, then a club. — Sharp 
knives necessary to remove some feathers — What the 
picker wears, and the wages he makes. — Washing the 
bird. — The process of tying the head under one 
wing. — Plumping the duckling in tanks of ice-water. — 
The shipping box. — Express pointers. — Use of barrels. 
— ISlot necessary to use ice. — Distance possible to 
ship IS almost unlimited. — Choosing a commission 
man. — Shipping ducklings alive. — How to scald and 
pick ducklings. — Getting the food passage empty 
before killing. — Care of the feathers, how to pack and 
ship them. 

The killing is done by the picker, who stands, holding 
the duckling between his legs, takes a sharp knife, double- 
edge, opens the mouth of the bird and cuts the roof of the 




STICKING KNIFE 

The duckling is killed with this knife. The blade is six inches long and one 
inch wide. The whole knife, handle and all, is ten and three-quarters inches 
long. The back should be ground and sharpened two inches down from the 
point, as well as the front edge, and the point should be kept sharp. 



duckling's mouth inside, making a cut of considerable 
depth so as to sever all the blood passages. 

Then he stuns the duckling by striking it with a club. 
This club is generally about eighteen inches long and not 
too heavy. Part of a wagon stake or a hoe handle 
answers very well. The bird is struck a good sharp blow 

75 



HOW WE MAKE DUCKS PAT 

so as to make it insensible. One blow is all that is neces- 
sary, although some pickers less skillful than others strike 
the duckling two or three times. The blow is aimed 
directly upon the top of the head with the club. The 
skull is not smashed. 

The bird is stunned immediately after sticking so that 
the blood will run better. 

While the duckling is bleeding, the picker goes imme- 
diately to his chair beside the feather box, sits and begins 
picking. The duckhng is cooling now and when the tem- 
perature of the blood gets below nmety-eight degrees it con- 
geals and stops running out of the duckling. The picker's 
feather box is about level with his knees so that he can drop 
the feathers easily off the duckling into the box as he picks 
them. He holds the head of the duckling between one 
knee and the box to prevent its fluttering and soiling the 
feathers with blood. There is a pail of water suspended 
from a wire directly over the feather box and the picker 
frequently wets his hand in this pail. This water causes 
the feathers to stick to his hand, which also gives him a 
grip or purchase on them so that he can pluck them out 
without much effort. The wing and tail and other coarse 
feathers are thrown out, as they are too hard and rough. 
The picker works by making a sharp jerk in the opposite 
direction from which the feathers lie, the skin meanwhile 
being drawn by the other hand so that it is tight. If very 
tender, the skin at the roots of the feathers is held between 
the fingers, and the feathers are pulled out straight, a few 
at a time. The pin-feathers are wet to cause them to stick 
to the hand and are then caught between the thumb and 
the blade of the knife held in the right hand. 

This knife is an important item to the picker. Each 
picker has from a half dozen to two dozen of these knives, 
and he sharpens them at noon or after work so that his 
working hours are not used up in the sharpening. We 
illustrate the style of knife used by the pickers. The blade 
is good steel. It is ground and honed, then stropped on an 
ordinary razor strop, Each picker has one of these leather 

76 



KILLING, PICKING, SHIPPING 

razor strops hanging beside him from the feather box. 
The knife is kept as sharp as a razor, for part of the bird 
really must be shaved to make a clean picking job. 

The pickers make from twenty to thirty dollars a week. 
It is all piece work. They get so much for every duckhng. 



KNIFE USED IN PICKING 

This knife is seven and one-half inches long over all. The blade is three 
and three-quarters inches long, and three-quarters of an inch wide. It must be 
of good steel so that a razor edge can be kept on it. Each professional duck 
picker has from half a dozen to two dozen of these knives and it is an important 
part of his business to keep them sharp. 

When their price is five cents for every duckling, the 
feathers pay for the picking. Some pickers demand eight 
cents a duckling. It is money well earned, and the weekly 
wages they make are not too much, as a degree of skill is 
required. It is a real trade. 

Old clothes should be worn in picking. The pro- 
fessional picker takes off all his clothes before beginning 
work in the morning, puts on an old shirt and a pair of full- 
length overalls which are white to begin. They are first 
oiled with raw linseed oil and left outdoors in the sun to 
dry for a week, then they are given a coat of hnseed oil and 
varnish. This makes the overalls moisture proof. They 
are generally worn by the picker until worn out. They 
are never washed. They are hard and stiff— like armor 
plate. 

In the picking room there should be a barrel or box of 
hme, air-slaking. This air-slaked hme is sprinkled around 
the picking room on the blood on the floor, to keep the place 
sweet. 

The picker who makes a slip and cuts the skin of the 
duckhng, or rips it, must sew it up. For this purpose each 
picker has a needle and a spool of thread and if he makes 
a cut or rip he quickly sews it. When he has done this it 
is almost impossible to find the place. 

77 




DUCK PICKER AT WORK 



KILLING, PICKING, SHIPPING 

The professional picker generally strops his knife by 
turning it on the strop on the edge, not on the back, as a 
razor is stropped. However, each man has his own way 
of keeping his knives sharp. 

A good picker should pick from forty to fifty ducks in a 
day. More than fifty a day is above the ordinary. Often 
a skillful picker is found who will average sixty-five a day. 

Each picker has a counter or tally device like a baseball 
umpire's counter, and as he finishes a bird he turns the 
counter. 

He puts the bird, when he is done with it, into a tank 
filled with water. This tank is made with compartments, 
eight or ten of them. Each picker has his own compart- 
ment for the birds which he picks, so that his work can 
be checked by the foreman. The foreman, who is gener- 
ally the man who ties up the birds and carries them forward 
to the shipping boxes, takes the birds one at a time from 
the picker's tank and washes them to get the blood off^, 
and the dirt off the feet. The washing is done in an 
ordinary pail. It is finished in cleaner water in a second 
pail. The foreman then puts the duckhng into another 
tub of water, not ice water, but ordinary faucet or spring 
water, to get the animal heat entirely out of the carcass. 
This saves ice when the ice is used later on in the process. 

The foreman then ties up the bird and this is an inter- 
esting process, as it makes a handsome, compact duckling. 
There are one or two details about this work of tying 
which should be noted carefully. The head of the duck- 
ling is bent around and back and put under the wing. A 
string is then passed around the entire bird at the middle 
of the body and a common hard knot made at the wing. 
The feet are allowed to stick straight out. The string 
confines the head and wings. A forming box or press 
such as is sometimes used in tying fowls is not necessary 
for ducklings. The operator works on top of a table with 
his hands alone. The string should not be fine, like harness 
thread for instance. Such fine string or thread, although 
it may be strong, will prove a nuisance because it will cut 

79 



HOfV WE MAKE DUCKS PAT 

the fingers of the operator. The string should be a good- 
sized white kind which carT be handled easily and rapidly 
by wet fi'ngers without cutting them. After the knot has 
been made the operator cuts the string with his picking 
knife. Be sure that the knot is on the side at or below 
the wing. Ducklings are often seen in the markets with 
the knot of their tying string directly over the centre of the 
breast, just the place where it ought not to be, because 
there it looks slovenly, and spoils the appearance of the 
birds. 

This string sinks into the flesh and is almost out of 
sight and hardly shows when the flesh is soft and wet. 

When the operator starts to tie up the duckling, it is 
lying on the board, breast up. He grasps the head in his 
right hand, swings it around to the right and puts it between 
the wing and that side of the body. The duckling after 
tying is put into one of the refrigerator tanks. Each tank 
is a convenient size, about six or eight feet long, three or 
four feet wide and three to four feet deep. These refrig- 
erating tanks are made of common Yankee pine or they 
can be made of cypress, or any wood suitable to hold 
water. If you give these tanks a good coating of paint 
inside you will find that they will wash out much quicker 
and better and will not become slimy like an unpainted 
tank. Water is first put into the tank to about one-half 
the depth, then the ducklings are put in. As a rule the 
birds float in the water. Once in a while a carcass will 
be found which will sink. As more and more ducks are 
put in they press down those already in the tank. The 
ice of course floats on top of the water. The duck is 
allowed to stay in the tank of ice-water until shipping time, 
which is generally from twelve to twenty hours later. The 
object of the ice-water is to plump the flesh and condition 
it. The water also adds slightly to the weight of the duck. 

The ducklings should be plumped in the ice-water over 
night and shipped the following day as the trains run. 

The ducklings are shipped to market by express (not 
freight) either in boxes or barrels. We use boxes in ship- 

80 



KILLING, PICKING, SHIPPING 

ping by express to the Boston market and get the empties 
back free by express. We use barrels in shipping to the 
New York market because when we ship there the ship- 
ments are handled by tv/o express companies and we cannot 
get back the empty boxes at a cheap rate. 

The shipping box we use is a substantial affair. A 
light, fragile box would not answer. The box holds twenty- 
four ducklings. Sometimes twenty-six will go in. 

The inside measurements of the shipping box are 
twenty-four inches long, fifteen inches wide, fourteen inches 
deep. It is built of one-inch pine. Better and lighter 
wood can be found in various sections of the United States. 
The cover of the box is not on hinges, but is bolted on 
with two bolts, one at each end of the cover in the middle. 
These boxes are used over and over again until they are 
worn out. They last for four or five years. The common 
or merchandise rate is charged by the express companies 
for taking the killed duckhngs in these boxes to market. 
For the ordinary express-train journey of six or seven hours 
or less, no ice is used. If the breeder is shipping long 
distances, ice should be packed in the box along with the 
birds. There is practically no limit to distance which 
killed ducklings can be shipped, as the markets are located 
in America, if the shipper packs correctly. 

Before putting the ducklings into the shipping box the 
box should be lined with brown paper. We do not mean 
that this paper should be tacked in. We have a supply of 
brown paper such as grocers use, the sheet being long 
enough to go across the box. We put a sheet on the 
bottom of the box which covers one side, then another 
sheet, then a third sheet on top of the ducks after they 
have been put in. This brown paper prevents the ducks 
from coming in contact with the wood, which may be 
dirty. It keeps them clean and the interior of the box 
has a sweet, clean look when opened. 

Shipping boxes like these should be used by anybody 
shipping to his market by one express company. If you 
have a market reached by two express companies from 




READY FOR SHIPPING 

Ducklings killed, picked and ready for packing and shipping. The string 
which confines the head under the wing has not yet been passed around over the 
breast and tied. Observe the large frame, full breast and general plumpness of 
these birds. When the photographer took the above picture, the ducks were 
lying on a horizontal table and the camera was six feet distant, higher than the 
table. The result is, that the three ducks on the inside (or bottom) row appear 
larger than the four behind (being nearer the camera). They all, however, 
were about the same size and weight, with the exception of the two at the left 
of the lower row, which were exceptionally big. 

These ducklings sell readily on their good looks and their delicious taste. 
Their plump, white flesh and trim appearance make them marked objects in 
any poultry or general market display. 

The ducklings in the picture were eleven weeks old when killed and weighed 
sixteen pounds to the pair. 



KILLING, PICKING, SHIPPING 

your place, you will not get the empty box back free as a 
rule, although you might in some cases. In that case 
barrels can be used, as we use them in shipping to New 
York City. We use sugar and flour barrels. They cost 
us eighteen cents empty. A sugar barrel will hold from 
forty-five to fifty ducklings. We do not head the barrel, 
but lay the paper in, then the ducklings, and on top of the 
barrel we stretch a piece of burlap, tacking it around the 
top of the barrel. A flour barrel holds from thirty-two to 
thirty-five ducklings. 

Sometimes an expressman, if he is green at handling 
these duck barrels, will turn one over and stand it on its 
head instead of on its bottom. This jams the top layer of 
ducklings but does not spoil them. In the summer we 
put ice in the barrel. The ice melts, as it should, because 
poultry keep better with cold water sprinkling over and 
around them than they do with only ice on them. The 
water collects in the barrel and if the expressman turns 
the barrel over it will run out and annoy him. The best 
way is to use boxes and not barrels if you are located so 
you can. We can use the boxes, shipping to New York, 
but it would cost us more to get the empty box from two 
express companies than a new barrel can be bought for. 

The New York market is a very strong one. People 
who do business in New York and live out in the country 
if they want to raise ducks need not fear for the market. 
That city will take an unlimited quantity of anything in 
the poultry line. The same is true of any other city in 
America or Canada. Wherever people are gathered to- 
gether there is a lot of eating going on, and anything in the 
poultry line is absorbed naturally as a sponge takes up 
water. 

We never use ice in shipping ducklings to Boston. 
The dealers give us fair weight. We have never had any 
trouble with any marketman on duckhngs. We have a 
set of scales in the shipping room and we get the net 
weight of every box as it is made up. We allow for shrink- 
age in the dressed duckhngs and are able to hit it exactly 



HOW WE MAKE DUCKS PAT 

right after experience. First we let the carcass drain 
for five minutes before putting it into the box. We squeeze 
it with our hands to get as much water out as possible. 
For every one hundred pounds net weight of ducklings 
there will be a shrinkage in going to market of three or 
four per cent. That is to say, when a marketman weighs 
them and pays according to his weight, he will return to 
you a weight of ninety-six or ninety-seven pounds to every 
one hundred pounds which you weighed. 

Prepay the express charges when shipping ducklings to 
market. This ends the matter. See them weighed your- 
self at your depot, pay your own agent and he will give 
you a receipt. He is a friend of yours and he will weigh 
them correctly. If you let the shipment go forward to 
the city, express charges collect, you never know exactly 
whether the charges are figured properly at the other end. 
The expressman who does the weighmg at the city end 
may be a new boy, just entered the employ of the company. 
The delivery-sheet writer may make an error. By the 
time the box gets to the marketman there may be an 
excessive charge. It is not for the interest of the market- 
man to question the charge, because it does not come out 
of him, but out of you. He will sign the driver's sheet as 
quickly as possible, pay the charges and that ends the 
matter except when he bills it up to you ; and you have to 
stand for them, unless you wish to go through the red tape 
and delay of getting a rebate. For these reasons we say 
to you emphatically, always prepay your shipments. We 
would not have the reader believe that express employees 
are careless and inefficient. We speak of these matters as 
a warning, a possibility. Prepay the shipment and your 
mind is at peace. 

The question is often asked, how long a distance can 
killed ducklings be successfully shipped to market? Even 
breeders who live in the West sometimes want to ship to 
New York. It is hard to answer this question in positive 
terms; it depends on the season, on the man who is doing 
the shipping, on the express company which is handling the 

84 



KILLING, PICKING, SHIPPING 

shipment and on the promptness with which the shipment 
is picked up at destination. As a rule, we would say that 
a distance of four or five hundred miles, such as from 
Buffalo to New York City, is all right. However, as this 
country is laid out with markets sprinkled everywhere, east, 
west and south, there is no excuse for anybody having any 
doubts as to being able to ship poultry. Get to work and 
turn out the ducks and such matters will take care of 
themselves. In Chicago, while visiting there, we saw a 
truckload of ducks for the provision market of one of the 
big department stores in that city. They had come from 
Pennsylvania and probably had been bought in New York 
City. Meats and poultry are sold cheaper in Chicago than 
in the eastern cities, and if a firm of this magnitude in 
Chicago can get its ducklings from such a long distance, 
as we are informed it does steadily, any breeder can ship 
ducks profitably any corresponding distance to market. 

In choosing a commission man or marketman, it is a 
good idea first to make him your friend. Tell him what 
you are going to produce. Write him or see him. Talk 
to him in a friendly way. Do not look upon him as an 
enemy. Do not change around from one dealer to an- 
other. When you have found a good man and got him 
acquainted with you and your ducklings, stick to him. 
His customers will praise your ducklings, they will tell him 
they are fine. He will write to you and say he is pleased 
with them. His trade in them will grow, and he wants it 
to grow because he will make more money. Let him push 
your goods. Stick to him and he will stick to you if he 
is any kind of a man. If you change around from one 
dealer to another they will not take the interest in your 
ducklings if they know that some other man will get the 
next lot of them. 

The whole duckling is not picked. The wing is picked 
up to the first joint. The neck is picked half way up to 
the head. The duckling is not opened or drawn. You 
must not take out the insides of a duckling before shipping. 
The birds will not keep nearly so well. They will begin to 

85 



HOW WE MAKE DUCKS PAT 

mould on the inside with the sHghtest delay. The market- 
men want them undrawn and that is the way you always 
should ship them. The birds are drawn by the marketman 
when he sells them to the customer, or the customer cleans 
them at his or her home, hotel or restaurant, or wherever 
the cooking is done. 

The killing and picking of ducklings can be avoided 
entirely, by shipping them alive. Many small breeders 
never ship any ducklings killed, but always alive. There 
are poultry gatherers everywhere who go about in wagons 
picking up live poultry. You will find their advertise- 
ments in the papers, asking you to write or telephone them, 
then they will call and get what you have. These gatherers 
take their goods off to the marketmen to be killed and 
picked. In some cases, they do the killing and picking 
themselves. 

Some marketmen will take the ducklings alive. Write 
and find out whether the marketman to whom you propose 
to ship will take the ducklings alive. 

The Hebrew and the Chinese trade in the large cities 
consume large quantities of ducklings. They wish them 
alive as a rule. Fowls have to be killed in a certain way 
to conform to the Hebrew religion. An excellent trade in 
live ducklings can be worked up with Hebrews and the 
Chinese. 

Ducklings sold killed or alive straight to the consumer 
bring the money which the commission man or dealer gets. 
A trade of this kind is worth working up, for the greater 
profits in it. 

Breeders are shipping ducklings to New York, Phila- 
delphia and other markets outside of New England, which 
have been scalded and picked. When a duck is scalded 
before picking, the feathers come off much easier. Not 
over five cents is paid for picking a scalded picked duck, 
because it is much easier work. The tail feathers are left 
on. 

A dry-picked duck in any of the eastern markets is 
always called a Boston duckling. 

86 



KILLING. PICKING, SHIPPING 

Many city markets see nothing but scalded ducks. 
The process of scalding is, first to immerse the duckling 
in a wash-boiler of water that has just come to a boil. 
The water must not be hotter than this. The duckling 
is held by the head and feet for half a minute in the water, 
then the feathers are immediately picked off. It is quite 
common for women who have a few ducks and ship only a 
few at a time to scald them before picking. 

To show you the present condition of the New York 
market with regard to scalded ducks and dry-picked duck- 
lings, it is true that for every one hundred ducks marketed 
in New York City ninety-five have been picked after scald- 
ing. It is more trouble to dry-pick them in the manner 
we have told in this chapter. Scald or dry-pick as your 
trade demands. 

Some picking is done before killing, generally in mid- 
summer when the feathers come out easier. This is a 
cruel practice which hurts the birds, and we do not think 
it ought to be done. 

We once had a man in our employ who claimed to be 
able to kill a duckling so that the feathers would come off 
easier. His theory was that he had found a certain spot 
in the brain of the duckhng which when he ran his killing 
knife into it affected the nerves of the whole body of the 
duckling so that the feathers were, as it were, released by 
the duckling. This seems silly to read but it is a fact that 
this picker got his feathers off more quickly than his 
fellows. He always ran the knife into the brain of the 
duckling from a peculiar angle. We do not vouch for the 
value of this information, but simply print it as a bit of 
gossip of the pickers. 

Ducklings about to be killed should have their last food 
at night so that their food passage is empty when killed the 
next day. They can be given plenty of water to drink 
before killing, but if the food passage is filled with grain 
when the bird is killed, this grain will ferment, sour, turn 
green and spoil the flesh. If by mischance a duckling is 
killed which has eaten and filled the food passage with 



KILLING, PICKING, SHIPPING 

grain, the neck should be squeezed and the grain washed 
out through the mouth before shipment. 

The duckhngs do not lose weight between their last 
feeding and killing time provided they have all the water 
they want to drink. 

A large plant will kill and ship on an average two hun- 
dred ducklings a day, when busiest four hundred a day. 
An average of three hundred fifty to three hundred seventy- 
five a day will keep nine pickers at work. 

Every twelve ducks will give up a pound of feathers 
worth on an average forty-five cents. This price may 
vary in different parts of the country. We have been 
getting fifty cents a pound this year — more than ever 
before. There are feather buyers everywhere. Their 
advertisements may be seen in many journals. Write us 
when you are ready to ship feathers and we will tell you a 
good place to ship them. 

The feathers are taken from the picking room several 
times a day and put in the feather loft. We use the loft 
of a grain barn. We throw them on the floor of the loft 
and stir them up with a pitchfork once a day for three or 
four days. By that time they are dried at the roots and 
can be pushed together into a pile to make room for new 
feathers from the picking room. Turn the pile over with 
a pitchfork once a week. The idea is to get the feathers 
loose. Do not let them pack up and get heated, and 
ferment. 

To ship the feathers to market, use bags made of white 
cotton cloth. Formerly we made the bags at our own 
expense, then we found out that the feather men, if we 
asked them, would send us the bags, so we got rid of this 
expense. Write to your feather man, tell him what you 
have, and he will send you the bags. A feather bag is 
generally six feet long and two and one-half feet wide. 
The feathers are packed into it tightly by hand. Sew up 
the top of the bag with string. The weight of a bag 
packed properly should be close to sixty pounds. It takes 
twenty to thirty minutes to stuff a bag. A bag may be 

89 



HOW WE MAKE DUCKS PAT 

filled easiest when it is suspended beneath a hole which 
has been cut in the floor of the loft. The feathers are then 
pushed, packed or shovelled in more easily than if picked 
up by handfuls. 

The feathers have a little odor when shipped. The 
feather man takes off this odor by using first a steam 
renovator which dries the feathers and kills all the animal 
germs in them with superheated steam which is very dry. 
The feathers are then put through a* blowing machine 
which separates the down. The feather men get more 
money for this down than they do for the feathers. 

These feathers are used to make bed and sofa pillows 
and all kinds of pillows. They are also used to make 
beds, especially for foreigners from Europe, where feather- 
beds are much more in use than in this country. There 
is quite a trade in these feather-beds, old-fashioned as 
they are. The demand for feathers for pillows never 
lets up. 




PEN OF DUCKLINGS ON DIRT RUN A WEEK PREVIOUS TO KILLING 
90 



CHAPTER NINE 
MARKETS 

To learn the true market prices of ducklings, ask the dealers 
what they want for selling to you, not what they will give 
when buying of you. — Letters from remote sections of the 
United States and Canada showing the wonderful 
opening for our ducklings. — Encouraging reports from 
everywhere, with the names and addresses of the writers. 
— Interesting information from the middlemen. — The 
best way to sell. — Facts given by dealers. — Demand 
for our big tame ducklings is admitted to be great, with 
assurance of high prices, even in those States where 
grain is very cheap. 

The best way to find olit how the market stands is to 
ask the commission man or dealer for what he is selling 
duckhngs. Don't tell him you have, or may have, some 
to sell. Ask to buy some. Then you will learn the real 
facts about the market. With that information in hand, 
see the commission man and tell him you will sell duck- 
lings at that price, less his five per cent commission. 

There is considerable foolishness in the commission 
business in this way. Some of the commission men claim 
to be handling farm produce on purely a commission basis, 
returning to the shipper the full price received, less ten 
per cent commission. This is not always true. They are 
not satisfied with ten per cent profit. They buy as low as 
they can and take ten per cent off of that, then they sell for 
what they can get and this selling price represents a profit 
of from thirty to one hundred per cent. 

In various sections of the country where we have sold 
breeding stock, we have written to commission men and 
poultry dealers (whose names we could learn in no other 
way than by looking in city directories), in order to find 

91 



HOW WE MAKE DUCKS PAT 

out what they would pay for ducks. We have done this at 
remote points, as we had plenty of knowledge as to the 
immensity of the big city markets. 

We have always found by such inquiries that ducks are 
sellers everywhere, and we know that ducklings bred from 
our stock would go Hke wild-fire anywhere. 

We recall one customer in the vicinity of Atlanta, 
Georgia. In writing to three wholesale dealers there, 
in October, when prices for ducklings are the lowest of 
the year, we received the following replies: 

M. D. Thompson, 42 Madison avenue, Atlanta, Georgia. 
— " We are selling now old ducks that dress fat for sixteen 
to eighteen cents a pound, and this demand will continue 
throughout the poultry season. We could place stock of 
your quahty to the extent of eight hundred to one thousand 
pounds a week." 

McDonald & Co., 43 South Broad street, Atlanta, 
Ga. — " Ducks such as you breed usually sell here at 
sixteen to eighteen cents a pound. Our market prefers 
scalded stock. However, dry-picked stock keeps longer 
and better and can be sold all right. Poultry is sold here 
with heads and feet on, undrawn. Crops must either be 
empty or drawn. We will be glad to serve you." 

Phillips Bros., 4 North Broad street, Atlanta, Ga. — 
" Yes, we can use your ducklings at ten or twelve wrecks 
old weighing five to six pounds, and sell them for sixteen 
cents to twenty cents a pound. If this class of ducks or 
ducklings can be produced, it will be a darUng for the 
purchaser. We would be glad indeed to see them and you 
can count on us as being a heavy purchaser. Let us see 
some of those ducks. Only prove your assertion to us and 
you need not go further South. It is good enough for us. 
The above may seem to you that we are doubtful of your 
production, but such can be done. Being from Missouri, 
we want to see it." 

If the above dealers are ready to pay such good whole- 
sale prices for good ducklings, the outlook in the South for 
a high retail price is indeed excellent. 

92 



MARKETS 

In the case of another customer (in Kentucky) who 
negotiated with us for a large purchase of breeding stock, 
we looked up the markets there and received the following 
encouraging letters: 

Carson-Proctor Co., 136 West Jefferson street, Louis- 
ville, Ky. — "We handle a great many common puddle 
ducks, which are about all that is used in our market. In 
case your customer should purchase a few of your ducks 
for our market, we would be very glad to take the matter 
up with him and handle his ducklings at market prices.'* 

H. M. DeBow & Co., 206 East Jefferson street, Louis- 
ville, Ky. — " I know nothing of the quality of your ducks, 
as I have never handled any of them. We have a good 
demand for our home ducks and can sell all we can get at 
prices ranging from eleven to thirteen cents per pound. 
Our ducks weigh from three to five pounds. Both white 
and colored are in good demand, though the white is more 
salable than the colored. It might be your ducks would 
command good prices in this market and a good trade 
could be worked up for them here. I do strictly a com- 
mission business; handle all produce on five per cent com- 
mission, make no advances at all." 

Harshfield, Hile & Co., 251 East Jefferson street, Louis- 
ville, Ky. — " We handle poultry exclusively on a straight 
commission basis and could sell to advantage at good 
prices, large quantities of ducklings such as you describe. 
Live ducks are sold exclusively on this market. The 
fowl as described by you would certainly prove a profitable 
investment, and we trust that you will succeed in intro- 
ducing them in this locality." 

In the winter time, in Texas, the hunters bring in to 
the markets wild ducks and sell them to the dealers for 
forty cents a pair. These ducks, small, skinny and rank- 
tasting as they are, sell readily to families. Tame duck- 
lings bred from our stock would be a revelation to Texans 
accustomed to eating the fishy, small wild ducks. Many 
of the Texas dealers wish the tame ducklings shipped to 
them alive. We append the following letters which we 

• 93 



HOW WE MAKE DUCKS PAT 

have received from Texas middlemen. Remember the 
prices they quote are what they wish to buy them for, not 
what the consumer is asked to pay: 

Pabst Bros., Galveston, Texas. — " You may refer your 
customer to us for handHng ducks picked or alive, but much 
prefer them alive, as it gives us more opportunities for 
sale, hence can get better results." 

F. J. McFarland, Central Depot, Houston, Texas. — 
" I have looked into the duck market a little and think that 
I can place your stock for you at a reasonable price, as the 
market at this point is very short of such stock. I have 
one or two places that I can place from five to ten dozen 
per week.'* 

F. E. Jones & Co., loio Commerce avenue, Houston, 
Texas. — " Ducks are generally in good demand in this 
market. Should we be favored with any of your con- 
signments we will sell them to the very best advantage, 
charging five per cent commission for handling them." 

Frederick Produce Company, 908 Commerce avenue, 
Houston, Texas. — " Ducks are very high in this section 
during the months of November, December and January. 
We buy only live stock. Let us know if you have any- 
thing to offer at this time and oblige." 

W. F. Puis, 704 Preston avenue, Houston, Texas. — 
" I believe I could work up a large trade in them eventually 
and get better prices and pay more. I have the best place 
in the city for dressed poultry and handle more of it than 
any firm here. The only trouble I have is getting choice 
poultry. There is no doubt in my mind but that ducks 
can be worked up to a large business providing the pro- 
ducer does not want too large a price for his ducks and if 
the cost of raising them, that is, the cost of the food, is not 
too high." 

It will surprise Western people to learn that ducklings 
are shipped to the New York market from as far west as 
Iowa. We are in receipt of a letter from H. S. Webber, 
Sioux City, Iowa, stating that the duck breeders there are 
shipping to New York steadily. It is Mr. Webber's 

94 



MARKETS 

opinion that he could ship a great many more duckHngs 
to the New York market provided they were the equal of 
the ducklings now being marketed in New York. Duck 
food is cheap in Iowa and the whole middle West, so much 
cheaper than in the East that the express on the killed 
ducklings from the Central States to New York would 
not amount to much in comparison. 

Six or seven years ago, the farmers in Illinois and other 
neighboring States received only six and seven cents a 
pound for their ducks, alive. Now they receive twelve 
and thirteen cents a pound, live weight. Consumers in the 
West have found out the fine quality and flavor of properly 
raised ducks. That is one reason why prices have 
increased as they have in the East the past few years. 

Ducklings are handled by the Iowa dealers both aHve 
and dressed. 

In Minnesota and Wisconsin the duck markets are 
very good. We have received the following letters from 
that section: 

Willard Hotel, St. Paul, Minn. — " There is a good 
market here for your white duckHngs weighing five to six 
pounds when ten or eleven weeks old. We would like to 
buy them." 

L. Eisenmenger Meat Co., St. Paul, Minn. — " During 
the summer months we have been buying our ducks, as 
well as other poultry, alive, and we dress them ourselves. 
Of course, now as the weather gets colder we prefer to 
have them dressed, and are urging our shippers to that 
effect. At this time we are paying ten to eleven cents per 
pound for them dressed, dehvered. We will use about 
five hundred to one thousand pounds a week from now 
until the hoHdays. Should you have some one in this 
district who is handhng your ducks, or who intends to 
have them, we should be glad to have a sample shipment. 
Then we will be able to know of its good qualities, and 
can make prices accordingly." 

G. L. Bradley Company, Minneapolis, Minn. — " We 
handle a great deal of poultry. Nice white ducks are sell- 

95 



HOW WE MAKE DUCKS PAY 

ing for nine and one-half to ten cents alive. We usually 
have a good market after Christmas. Ducks alw^ays sell 
better that season of the year. We can sell any amount of 
ducks every week. Of course extra nice fine ducks would 
sell at a better price. The kind you speak of ought to 
bring tw^elve and one-half cents and later they might sell 
at fourteen and fifteen cents dressed. We do not know 
what we can do with this class, but it is our impression 
that they will sell well. We should be glad to handle any 
shipment you may favor us with to the best advantage 
possible and give you prompt returns." 

Chapman & Eissler, 275 Broadway, Milwaukee, Wis. — 
" At present ducks are selling at eleven cents a pound 
ahve. The trade has not taken much to dressed ducks as 
yet. Later we expect to be able to sell them dressed at a 
good market profit. Will pay fourteen to fifteen cents 
per pound and can sell lots of them." 

From a personal knowledge of the San Francisco mar- 
ket (to cite one instance of many), we are aware that 
most ducks for sale there weigh only four pounds. .There 
are thousands of wild ducks in California but they weigh 
only six or seven pounds to the pair (from three to three 
and one-half pounds apiece) and they taste nothing at all 
like our grain-fattened, tame ducklings. They are rank, 
tasting oily, fishy and gamy, and cannot be sold in com- 
petition with the tame, grain-fed duckling. We have the 
following letter from a San Francisco firm: 

California Poultry Co., Market and Eleventh streets, 
San Francisco, Cal. — " We are glad to see that you have a 
certain party to go into the duck business, and we will cer- 
tainly use some of his ducks as soon as he gets them ready 
for the market. Prices are running from $9 to $10.50 a 
dozen. We use from five to twelve dozen every week and 
like to get them shipped in alive." 

The markets in San Francisco and other cities on the 
Pacific coast are great ones for ducks, and big money is 
going to be made there by duck breeders. The people on 
the West coast spend their money freely and have the best 

96 



MARKETS 

of everything for their tables. These fine duckHngs would 
make a sensation there in the eating line on account of 
their novelty and worth. They are not known there as 
they are in New York and Boston and will "go" in great 
shape. 

We had a customer in the vicinity of Los Angeles, and 
he found out that the market there is a steady and paying 
one, as the following letters show: 

H. G. Spaulding, 308 Temple street, Los Angeles, Cal. — 
*' We are using about two dozen ducks per week, present 
price twelve cents per pound. Of course, we use larger 
quantities over the hoHdays." 

J. W. Harris, 122 East Seventh street, Los Angeles, 
Cal. — " I could use two hundred ducks per week alive 
from December i to May i, at sixteen cents per pound. 
From May i to December i we buy at twelve to fourteen 
cents per pound." 

Marin's Creamery & Poultry Yards, Figueroa street, 
Los Angeles, Cal. — " We can use all the ducks shipped us. 
They must be shipped alive. The price, of course, will 
vary from week to week." 

The demand is insistent in Colorado. The prices 
quoted by the following wholesalers are about half what 
the consumer has to pay there: 

Dickey-Farney Co., Denver, Col. — " There is a greater 
demand on this market for ducks of the description which 
you give than your prospective customer could raise in two 
or three years. At the present time we are paying twelve 
and a half to thirteen and a half cents a pound for ducks, 
and could very easily use a couple of thousand pounds a 
week, and the trade could be very easily increased by the 
superior quality." 

Pinkett Bros. Commission Co., 1625 Market street, 
Denver, Col. — " We are the largest dealers in poultry in 
this city. We offer ten cents a pound for live ducks, 
deHvered here. Dressed ducks are selling here today at 
thirteen cents per pound. Our commission on dressed 
poultry is eight per cent." 

97 



HOW WE MAKE DUCKS PAT 

There is plenty of money in Montana for a nice table 
delicacy. The following letters are from Butte City: 

N. Davis, 1 1 26 Arizona street, Butte City, Mont. — 
** We have no regular prices for ducks. We get them as 
cheap as we can and we pay market prices. We have 
calls nearly every day for ducks and drakes for breeding 
purposes." 

Jonas Eisler, Butte, Mont. — " The average young duck 
that is in demand here is about a three to three and one-half 
pound duck." 

Fine poultry goes just as well in any part of Canada as 
in the United States. There is no duty on our live breed- 
ing stock shipped to Canada. The Hon. Sydney Fisher, 
Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, has 
expressed his regrets that Canadian farmers have paid so 
small amount of attention to duck raising. Before selling 
to Canada customers in the vicinity of Toronto, and in 
Manitoba, we made inquiries with the following results: 

T. H. Smith & Co., 70 Colborne street, Toronto, Ont., 
Can. — " With reference to your ducklings, we presume the 
quality would be a little beyond the average, and would 
bring a larger price. We will be pleased to have your 
shipments at any time, and will give them our best atten- 
tion." 

F. Simpson & Sons, 734-738 Yonge street, Toronto, 
Ont., Can. — " We cannot give you much information con- 
cerning ducks as we have never gone into the business 
very extensively. The wholesale price just now is fourteen 
cents per pound." 

Gallagher-Holman LaFrance Co., Winnipeg, Manitoba, 
Can. — " Concerning ducklings would say we think the 
prospect very bright for a proposition such as you men- 
tion. Just at present the wholesale price of ducklings is 
twelve and one-half cents; this we consider is about the 
lowest price which they can be obtained at during the 
year. With reference to the supply might state the supply 
is not sufficient for the demand, excepting at this season of 
the year (October). We think there would be no difficulty 



MARKETS 

in finding a market for all the ducklings your friend could 
raise." 

The beef wholesalers handle an enormous quantity of 
poultry. We have the following letter from a leading one : 

Morris & Co., Poultry and Egg Department, Chicago, 
111. — " We are at all times in the market for fancy ducks. 
There is no limit to the quantity we could use." 

What is true of the above firm with regard to the de- 
mand for ducks is also true of Armour& Co. and the others 
of the great beef wholesalers. 

The best ducklings now in the Chicago and St. Louis 
and surrounding markets are shipped there from New 
York. Anybody getting in now with our ducks in the 
Central States and shipping to Chicago and the other 
cities there will have abundant cause for congratulation. 

George S. Sloan & Son, 124 South Water street, Chicago, 
111. — " There is a good demand here in ducklings you 
mention, we are now getting them from New York, selling 
from five to ten barrels a week. Prices ranging from 
fifteen to eighteen cents per pound, f. o. b. Chicago. 
Would want ducks dressed, scalded or dry picked, un- 
drawn, heads and feet on." 

Wellington Hotel, comer Wabash avenue and Jackson 
Boulevard, Chicago, 111. — " We cannot say definitely as to 
quantity of your ducklings we may use, the price we will 
pay, etc. We are always looking for Ai poultry and should 
any one near us breed your ducks we could no doubt use 
quite a number every week." 

Even the Utah market is looking forward to better 
duck times. Note the following: 

W. M. Rash Co., Salt Lake City, Utah.—" At the 
present time we are paying ten cents per pound, live 
weight, for ducks delivered at our place of business. The 
demand is not heavy, being principally confined to the 
Chinese restaurants. If the stock is fancy and steady 
supply sure, we might work up considerable business in 
other quarters." 

J. M. Christensen & Co., Salt Lake City, Utah.— "We 

99 



HOW WE MAKE DUCKS PAT 

are not handling ducks now but if we could get a good and 
steady supply, we would like to try to work up a market." 

Other letters follow, as we have received them from 
other sections of the country: 

John Blessed & Son, 347 Woodward avenue, Detroit, 
Mich. — " Ducklings would be worth to us from fourteen 
to sixteen cents a pound, scalded and picked." 

Faltis Market Co., Detroit, Mich. — " We bought several 
thousand dollars worth of ducklings from New York this 
and last season and of course will be glad to use the same 
grade if produced nearer home. We use a large quantity 
beginning early in the season and do not get any good 
ducklings in this vicinity until about this time of the year 
(October). Regarding price, we would no doubt be will- 
ing to pay on the New York basis. As we said before, we 
purchase a great deal on that market." 

Edson Brothers, no Dock street, Philadelphia, Penn. 
— " If the ducklings which are produced from your stock 
are as you say a wonderfully large, juicy bird and are 
much better than the average Long Island duck in the 
market, we think we could work up a pretty good trade on 
them, as the prices which are prevailing now on White 
Pekin dressed ducks are very attractive to the trade, and 
we think more of these ducks have been consumed this 
past season than ever before. Our market on Long 
Island ducks at the present time is from sixteen to eighteen 
cents as to size and quality. The larger ducks are most 
in demand during the summer months when the hotels are 
using them." 

P. S. Dewald, 344 North Front street, Philadelphia, 
Penn. — *' We have been using a great many ducks this 
fall, more than usual owing to their low price. Just at 
present we are getting the last of a flock of fifteen hundred 
head for which we paid thirteen cents a pound and at the 
same price could probably handle some more. It is 
reasonable to suppose that the price is likely to improve." 

Hotel Havlin, Cincinnati, O. — " We can always use 
ducklings, such as you breed, when they are fresh killed 

100 



MARKETS 

and dry-picked. At present we are using about ten pairs 
per week. This is no criterion, as ours is a new house." 

Charles H. Keith & Sons, 554 West Sixth street, 
Cincinnati, 0. — " The duck stock which you breed is 
rather new to this market. We had several inquiries last 
spring, but it was so late in the season that we gave them 
no attention. As we have not sold any white Pekin 
ducklings, it would be hard for us to say how much we 
could pay for them. Should we be able to use any, we 
would want them alive. We are getting a fine line of 
white ducklings that dress up to four or four and a half 
pounds, that sell well. Later we will get celery-fed ducks 
from Wisconsin, that weigh about six pounds each when 
dressed. Tell your prospective patron to start in and 
raise his ducklings. Just before they are ready for market 
let him compute the price at which he can sell them, and 
communicate with us." 

Rowland Poultry Co., 2005 Pacific avenue, Tacoma, 
"Wash. — " Yes we can sell your ducklings. There is a 
good sale during the winter season." 

As a rule, most of the poultry markets in the United 
States and Canada do not know yet what a good duck is. 
There is a splendid opening ever3rwhere for breeders with 
the right birds. Get into your nearest market, capture 
your share of it and get the good prices which your duck- 
lings will bring. 

What is known among epicures as a canvasback duck 
is a wild duck from the breeding grounds of Chesapeake 
Bay. They live largely on the wild celery which grows 
there. They weigh eight pounds to the pair. They are 
much prized by many diners on account of their peculiar 
flavor due to the wild celery and are worth about five dol- 
lars a pair in the markets. 

Most of the dealers whose letters we quote in this 
chapter know only the common or puddle duck, weighing 
only three or four pounds when full grown. At three 
months they weigh only between three and four pounds. 
The eggs are small and greenish in color. The Pekin eggs 

lOI 



HOW WE MAKE DUCKS PAT 

are large and white. It takes the whole summer for the 
puddle duck to mature. Compared to our Pekin duck- 
lings they look like a sparrow alongside of a chicken. 

It is not uncommon to see in the markets small, thin, 
bruised, half-fattened, half-picked ducks. Many of them 
have bloody bills and their feet are dirty with caked 
manure and mud. Avoid sending to market anything in 
that class. Open a box of our duckhngs and you see first 
the brown paper, a good introduction to the contents, then 
the contents themselves, clean of bill and feet, white and 
plump, something good which whets the appetite and 
makes one long for possession. Duckhngs properly 
marketed give the buyer a good impression. 

The red-head duck (wild) is thought to be good eating 
in some sections, Maine for example. A friend of ours 
killed a red-head down in Maine which weighed four 
pounds. Three trout were found in her gullet. She was 
roasted with all skill at command but tasted oily and 
fishy and was a disappointment. 

All the letters from dealers which we quote in this 
chapter were written by them in 1906, summer and fall. 
At that time, everywhere, ducks aie at their lowest price. 
The figures given in the letters may be considered the min- 
imum prices of the year. The spring prices are much 
higher. We have not investigated the markets much in 
other sections of the country except in a general way, 
being advised by customers that they were selling profita- 
bly everywhere. There is not a place where duckhngs 
cannot be raised and sold at the same profit we make 
here in the East, because it is all a question of finding 
men, women and children who like table delicacies. 
These people live around every market. Ducklings are 
as salable as anything eatable they buy. 

Lake, ocean and river steamers, dining cars on all 
railroads, hotel and restaurants ever3rwhere, clubs, etc., all 
want good ducklings. Sell to them direct if you can and 
make the fifty to one hundred per cent profit which a 
middleman will make if you sell to him first. 

102 



MARKETS 

Commission men, poultry dealers, hotels, etc., are 
pestered continually with letters from poultry experi- 
menters and dreamers. Most of them pay no attention 
to letters written by curiosity seekers and throw them into 
the waste basket. They are always interested to talk 
business with anybody who actually has poultry to sell, 
and proves it by his letter. Anybody who starts off on a 
campaign of letter-writing or walking tour of investiga- 
tion as to whether ducklings are salable, and at what 
prices, would better, as we have suggested before, inquire 
for what he can buy them. Let the dealers come to you, 
when you have the ducklings ready. If you are breeding 
the right ducklings, they will drum you for the chance to 
sell them. It is all under your control. 

Make a start, turn out the duckhngs and begin learn- 
ing the markets as well as other details by actual practice. 
An ounce of this practice, this actual handling of the 
business, is worth a ton of theorizing. The subject takes 
on a near and real aspect. We have had customers write 
four-page letters for weeks asking full details about size 
of shipping boxes, locations of markets, names of market- 
men who would take one hundred ducklings a day, etc., 
fearing that should they embark in the industry they would 
flood their nearest city with ducklings which would be a 
drug in the market — ■ and all the while these beginners 
did not have even a trio of ducks; their fears existed on 
paper only. Anybody who can entertain doubts that 
duckhngs and other poultry can be sold profitably when 
raised has not intelligence enough to succeed in poultry 
raising. Such people should face at the start the fact that 
they are unfitted for business on their own hook and 
should keep on working for others more resourceful and 
more enterprising. It is weak and pitiful, when a man 
presumably intelligent and at the age of discretion will 
write and say: " I five in a small place two hundred miles 
from any city and I don't think I can market ducklings if 
I raise them, or make any money with them ; do you be- 
lieve I can V What can be said to such a man to convince 

103 



HOW WE MAKE DUCKS PAT 

him? Can anything be said briefly? Hardly. Such a man 
must be educated from the beginning. He has no imagin- 
ation. He cannot conceive that there are people who 
Hke to have good things from day to day on their dinner 
tables: city people, and country people too, not only the 
wealthy ones, but the comfortably well-off, who are search- 
ing for nice, appetizing food to eat all the time. Never 
having been in a great city market, he does not reaUze that 
tons and tons of ducklings and car-loads of chickens and 
eggs melt away there every day like dew in the morning 
sun. We speak of this subject emphatically because it 
is an exasperating experience to receive a letter from a 
beginner expressing doubts as to the markets, and fears 
that he will flood his nearest market, once he starts. Such 
letter writers almost invariably state their alarm that the 
whole country soon will be raising ducks, and that ducks 
will drop in value to nothing. 

Another doubt of beginners is that they cannot sell 
ducklings except cheaply to commission men and dealers. 
Why should a duck breeder sell to a commission man or 
dealer, if he does not wish to? The selling of his product 
is always under the control of the breeder. He can sell to 
whom he pleases and is not obliged to take the first offer. 
We have always sold to commission men and dealers and 
made a good profit, but we have been well aware all the 
time that we could have made more money selling over 
their heads direct. Some dealers and commission men 
will not pay what ducklings are worth if they find they can 
impose on the breeder, or keep him in ignorance of the 
market. 

New York and Boston will take all the ducklings offered 
at what are now the highest prices in America. Those of 
our customers who raise ducklings in New England, and in 
New York, Pennsylvania and other States within shipping 
distance of New York and Boston are more favored than 
those in remote States, but the day of the latter is coming 
quickly. An idea of what the Boston market is may be 
obtained from the following: 

104 



MARKETS 

Nathan Robbins & Co., 33 and 35 Faneuil Hall 
Market, Boston. — "We find that we sell as many if not 
more ducks than chickens and they are daily becoming 
more popular. The pubHc is beginning to reahze that 
ducks are delicious eating and when properly raised are 
very meaty. The average price that we pay for our 
supply of ducks during the year is about seventy-five 
cents a duck. They weigh between five and six pounds. 
Of course during March and April, when the new ducks 
come in, we have to pay double this price. First-class 
ducks such as are raised from your stock always bring 
the high prices and are easily sold. We find that th^ 
prosperous, first-class trade will always pay way up for 
the best ducks. We use a great many duckhngs during 
the summer and store away a large number for winter 
trade." 

Swan, Newton & Co., 18 Faneuil Hall Market, Boston. 
— " We can sell your white Pekin ducklings up to the 
limit of production, and good duckhngs of this breed never 
go begging in this market. The native Pekin ducklings 
that we put away in cold storage for winter trade sell much 
better and bring higher prices than the so-called young, 
fresh Western ducks shipped here during the winter. We 
buy, however, quite a number of the Western ducklings 
during the winter as the supply here is scarce. There is 
no special season for the sale of ducks. We find the 
demand on the increase and good the whole year. During 
March and April, when the green or new ducks come in, 
the supply is very limited and they sell in open market for 
thirty-five cents per pound. The earlier the dealers get 
them in the market, the better the price they get for them." 
Adams, Chapman & Co., 38 North Market street, 
Boston. — " We handle more ducks than any other firm in 
Boston, and are in the market at all times for all we can 
get. We pay from fourteen to eighteen cents a pound for 
them and have never found the supply equal to the demand. 
Many of the duck farms are increasing the size of their 
output, owing to the increasing demand and the large 

105 



HOfV WE MAKE DUCKS PAT 

profits in the business. We get twenty-two cents a pound 
for cold-storage ducks during the winter. The western 
ducks shipped to the Boston market are old birds weighing 
three, four, and five pounds. They are not to be com- 
pared with the fresh, native ducks bred around here. We 
can sell all the ducks that are sent in to us." 

Harrison, Swan & Co., i New Faneuil Hall Market, 
Boston (Mr. Richardson). — "We buy large quantities 
of Pekin ducklings at ten weeks which weigh between five 
and six pounds apiece. We buy direct from the duck 
farms and also from commission merchants in this city. 
During January these ducks bring thirty-five cents a 
pound, and during July and August, which are the 
lightest months of the year, sixteen cents and seventeen 
cents per pound. They seldom sell here for lower than 
this. There is an active demand for good, meaty ducks 
and we can sell all we can get of them. One large 
grower with whom I am acquainted averages the entire 
year about one dollar per duck." 

J. P. Lawrence & Co., 30 Faneuil Hall Market, Bos- 
ton (Mr. Woodman). — " There is an excellent demand 
for white Pekin ducklings and we easily sell all we can get 
at a good price to hotels, restaurants, and private con- 
sumers. We make from three to five cents per pound on 
every duck we sell, and the raiser much more. During 
the summer we put many ducks away in cold storage 
for sale during the winter, when the supply is scarce. We 
buy most of our ducks direct and pay cash for them." 

H. L. Lawrence & Co., 46 and 48 Faneuil Hall Market, 
Boston. — " We pay for white Pekin ducks on an average 
of fourteen cents per pound, and sell them for twenty- 
three and twenty-five cents per pound. During January 
and February they sell for twenty-five to thirty-five cents 
per pound and we have to pay for them twenty cents to 
thirty cents per pound. We have never known the 
supply to equal the demand, which is good at all times. 
Fine Pekin ducklings will always sell and people will pay 
the top price for them." 

106 



MARKETS 

C. R. Corwin & Co., 2 Faneuil Hall Market, Boston.— 

" We have been paying the duck raisers this year thirteen 
cents and fourteen cents per pound, while last year we 
were paying them seventeen cents and eighteen cents a 
pound. The demand for Pekin ducklings has always 
been good and we can sell all we can get hold of all the 
year round. We are commission merchants and pay for 
the ducks at the prevaihng market price, deducting only 
five per cent of the proceeds as our profit for selhng them." 
W. E. Legg & Co., 6 South Market street, Boston. — 
" We buy our Pekin ducklings alive, and can dispose of 
a fair amount at good prices. There has been a very fair 
demand this year for these birds. Duck raisers can make 
good money selling their stock at fifteen cents per pound 
and the price paid here is seldom lower than that. Last 
year we paid seventeen cents and eighteen cents at whole- 
sale for our supply. Send your live ducks in." 

Mr. R. Norton Crane, of the Mississippi Agricultural 
College, writes : " How few farmers throughout our 
Southern States grow ducks for market in any quantity 
whatever. Yet in no other branch of the whole poultry 
industry do we find such large profits coming so regularly 
and so surely. There is at all times a steady demand for 
well-fattened young ducks on every market of the United 
States. I tried Mobile last fall with some very inferior 
ones several months old, and weighing only two and one- 
half pounds, but I received twenty-four cents a pound for 
them. This is paid for poor stuff. What could we get if 
we had first-class young ones?" 

We furnish the breeding stock to breed first-class duck- 
lings, and we would Hke to get into communication in the 
South with duck farmers who mean business and will 
profit by the above suggestion from Mr. Crane. 

To settle the matter of duty or no duty on our breeding 
stock shipped to Canada, we wrote the collector of cus- 
toms at Montreal and received the following reply from 
him : "In reply to your letter of inquiry, I beg to inform 

107 



HOW WE MAKE DUCKS PAT 

you that live poultry, thoroughbred, imported into Canada 
for the improvement of stock, is admitted free of duty. 
There must be produced with the entry at customs a cer- 
tificate of purity of breed from the breeder of the poultry. 
(Signed) R. S. White, Collector." 

When we ship our breeding stock to Canadian cus- 
tomers, we send a certificate of purity of breed, as called 
for, and the customer pays no duty. More letters follow: 

Bruno Franz Sons, 447 Franklin avenue, St. Louis, 
Mo. — " We have never handled the Boston ducklings on 
this market. We are selling heavy young broiling ducks 
and have been using the common spring ducks, and if 
we can get first-class ducklings we can get a fancy price 
for them as we have the cream of the trade. We would 
want ducklings scald picked, and could handle several 
thousand pounds a month. We sell more city dressed 
ducks and geese than any other two houses in this city 
and can get fancy prices for fancy stock." 

R. F. Brandt, Sheriff Street Market, Cleveland, 0.— 
" We are in the market at any time for choice ducks or 
other poultry. We can use almost any amount shipped 
us; prefer scalded ones. Can use them alive if no con- 
venience to dress. We consider the market good for 
choice ducks." 

B, S. Schermerhorn & Co., 316 South Los Angeles 
street, Los Angeles, Cal. — "Most of the ducks come in 
here as grown birds and are sold alive. Selling values 
vary at from about ten to fifteen cents a pound, live 
weight. The quality or breed of the bird makes but 
little difference, so long as the bird is living. We handle 
very few ducks, but believe we could work up a nice 
business on fancy, young live ducklings. We certainly 
would like to give it a try. We beheve we could obtain a 
premium on present prevaihng prices. We beheve a 
man could make a nice living here, running a small duck 
farm, stocked with fancy stock and feeding them on 
grains, etc., rather than on mud, water and small 
fish." 

108 



MARKETS 

Boston Market Quotations. It has been customary for 
the Boston Globe to print quite regularly on Saturday 
mornings market quotations on household supplies. The 
Boston Herald has a similar article now and then for the 
information of the housewife. We print herewith quota- 
tions monthly as we have seen them in the Globe, begin- 
ning with January, 1904, and extending to the time this 
book goes to press, February, 1907. A few of the quota- 
tions (where indicated) are from the Herald. These 
quotations are interesting as showing the comparative 
prices of chickens, turkeys, ducks, etc., in the months 
specified. The wide variation in market quotations as 
seen in the daily papers and other periodicals was well 
illustrated in the spring of 1904 and 1905, for example. 
The Globe found the prices then to be about twenty-five 
cents a pound, but the Herald found them to be thirty- 
five cents a pound. If you actually go into the Boston 
markets in the spring and try to buy ducklings, thirty to 
thirty-five cents a pound is what you have to pay. Some 
reporters for the newspapers, when they set out to write a 
market article, announce themselves as reporters and ask 
the dealers what prices they will put into the papers. The 
dealers naturally talk low prices so as not to frighten off 
the buying public from their stalls. Other reporters go on 
an imaginary shopping tour, asking the dealers, without 
disclosing their identity, just what they will take for this 
and that, and in such a way they get the true market 
prices. It all depends on the reporter who does it. The 
quotations follow: 

January 16, 1904. Poultry and game — Turkeys, good 
25 to 28c lb, westerns 23 to 25c lb, chickens 20 to 22c lb, 
native chickens 25 to 28c lb, fowl 18 to 20c lb, geese 18 to 
25c lb, ducks 20 to 25c lb, capons 20 to 28c lb. 

February 20, 1904. Poultry and game — Turkeys, 
good 25 to 28c lb, westerns 25c lb, chickens 20 to 25c lb, 
native chickens 28c lb, fowl 18 to 20c lb, geese 22c lb, 
ducks 23c lb, capons 25 to 28c lb. 

March 12, 1904. Poultry and game — Turkeys, good 

109 



HOW WE MAKE DUCKS PAT 

22 to 25 to 28c lb, westerns 18 to 20 to 22c lb, chickens 20 
to 22 to 25c lb, native chickens 30 to 33c lb, fowl 17 to i8c 
lb, geese 21 to 22c lb, ducks 21 to 22c lb, capons 25 to 28 
to 30c lb. 

April 15, 1904, Boston Herald. A new-comer is green 
duck, which looks very dainty. They are worth 35 cents 
by the pound. 

May 21, 1904. Poultry and game — Turkeys, good 
28c lb, westerns 23 to 25c lb, chickens 20 to 25c lb, native 
chickens 33 to 35c lb, fowl 18 to 20c lb, geese 20c lb, ducks 
28c lb, capons 25 to 33c lb. 

June II, 1904. Poultry and game— Turkeys, good 
25 to 28c lb, westerns 22 to 25c lb, chickens 20 to 25c lb, 
native chickens 30 to 35c lb, fowl 17 to i8c lb, geese 18 to 
20c lb, ducks 25 to 28c lb, capons 25 to 32c. 

July 23, 1904. Poultry and game — Turkeys, good 22 
to 25c lb, chickens 25 to 28c lb, native chickens 40 to 42c 
lb, fowl 18 to 20c lb, geese 18 to 28c lb, ducks 20 to 22c lb, 
capons 28c lb. 

August 20, 1904. Poultry and game — Turkeys, west- 
erns 22 to 25c lb, chickens 20 to 22c lb, native chickens 35c 
lb, fowl 18 to 20c lb, geese 24c lb, ducks 20c lb. 

September 24, 1904. Poultry and game — Turkeys, 
good 25 to 30c lb, westerns 23c lb, chickens 18 to 22c lb, 
native chickens 25c lb, fowl 18 to 20c lb, geese 20 to 22c 
lb, ducks 20 to 22c lb, capons 28c lb. 

October 15, 1904. Poultry and game — Turkeys, 
good 28 to 33c lb, westerns 22 to 28c lb, chickens 17 to 23c 
lb, native chickens 20 to 25c lb, fowl 18 to 20c lb, geese 22 
to 23c lb, ducks 22c lb, capons 28c lb. 

November 5, 1904. Poultry and game — Turkeys, 
good 27 to 33c lb, westerns 21 to 28c lb, chickens 16 to 23c 
lb, native chickens 20 to 25c lb, fowl 17 to 20c lb, geese 20 
to 23c lb, ducks 20 and 22c lb, capons 26 to 28c lb. 

December 31, 1904. Poultry and game — Turkeys, 
good 25c lb, westerns 23c lb, chickens 25c lb, native 
chickens 28c lb, fowl i8c lb, geese 22c lb, ducks 25c lb, 
capons 28 to 30c lb. 

no 



MARKETS 

January 7, 1905. Poultry and game^ — Turkeys, good 
25 to 28c lb, westerns 25c lb, chickens 28 to 30c lb, native 
chickens 30c lb, fowl 18 to 20c lb, geese 20c lb, ducks 23 to 
25c lb. 

March 11, 1905. Poultry and game — Turkeys, good 
25 to 28c lb, westerns 23 to 25c lb, chickens 20, 22, 25c lb, 
native chickens 25, 28, 30c lb, fowl 17 to 20c lb, geese 17 to 
22c lb, ducks 18, 20, 22c lb, capons 20, 25, 28c lb. 

April 22, 1905, Boston Herald. A very choice and 
toothsome bird is the young duckling. They began to 
come in this week. They are as round and as smooth as 
an apple, and are quite aristocratic in price — 35 cents by 
the pound. 

May 12, 1905. Poultry and game — Turkeys, good 25 
to 28c lb, westerns 25c lb, chickens 22 to 23c lb, native 
chickens 25 to 30c lb, fowl 17 to i8c lb, geese 17 to i8c lb, 
ducks 22 to 25c lb, capons 28 to 30c lb. 

May 27, 1905. Poultry and game- — Turkeys, good 
28 to 30c lb, westerns 28c lb, chickens 20 to 28c lb, native 
chickens 35 to 36c lb, fowl 18 to 20c lb, geese 20 to 22c lb, 
ducks 25c lb, capons 28 to 35c lb. 

June 3, 1905. Poultry and game — Turkeys, good 27 
to 30c lb, westerns 25 to 28c lb, chickens 18 to 28c lb, 
native chickens 32 to 36c lb, fowl 16 to i8c lb, geese 20 to 
22c lb, ducks 23 to 25c lb, capons 28 to 35c lb. 

July 8, 1905. Poultry and game — Turkeys, good 25c 
lb, westerns 25c lb, chickens 20 to 25c lb, native chickens 
35 to 38c lb, fowl 16 to i8c lb, geese 20 to 22c lb, ducks 
20 to 23c lb, capons 28c lb. 

August 26, 1905. Poultry and game — Turkeys, good 
28c lb, westerns 25c lb, chickens 17 to 23c lb, native 
chickens 25 to 28c lb, fowl 18 to 20c lb, geese 25c lb, ducks 
23c lb, capons 28c lb. 

September 23, 1905. Poultry and game — Chicken 
turkeys 25 to 28c lb, western 25c lb, chickens 18 to 20c lb, 
native chickens 22 to 28c lb, fowl 18 to 20c lb, geese 22 to 
23c lb, ducks 23c lb, capons 28c lb. 

October 21, 1905. Poultry and game — Turkeys, 

III 



HOW WE MAKE DUCKS PAT 

good 25c lb, westerns 25c lb, chickens 16 to 20c lb, native 
chickens 25c lb, fowl 17 to 20c lb, geese 22 to 23c lb, ducks 

22 to 23c lb, capons 28c lb. 

December 16, 1905. Poultry and game — Turkeys, 
good 23c to 28c lb, westerns 22 to 25c lb, chickens 17 to 20c 
lb, native chickens 18 to 30c lb, fowl 17 to 20c lb, geese 
20 to 23c lb, ducks 20 to 25c lb, capons 28 to 30c lb. 

March 24, 1906. Poultry and Game — Western tur- 
keys 25c lb, chickens 22 to 25c lb, native chickens 30c lb, 
fowl 1 8c lb, geese 20 to 23c lb, ducks 22 to 25c lb, capons 
25 to 28c lb. 

April 28, 1906. Poultry and game — Turkeys, good 25c 
lb, westerns 25c lb, chickens 20c lb, native chickens 28c 
lb, fowl i8c lb, geese i8c lb, ducks 25c lb, capons 28c lb. 

May 26, 1906. Poultry and game — Turkeys, good 
25c lb, westerns 25c lb, chickens 22c lb, native chickens 
35c lb, fowl i8c lb, geese 22c lb, ducks 20 to 22c lb, capons 
25c lb. 

June 9, 1906. Poultry and game — Turkeys, good 25 
to 28c lb, westerns 25c lb, chickens 22 to 25c lb, native 
chickens 38c lb, fowl 19c lb, geese 20 to 22c lb, ducks 20c 
lb, capons 25c lb. 

July 28, 1906. Poultry and game — Turkeys, good 25c 
lb, westerns 23 to 25c lb, chickens 25 to 37 to 40c lb, fowl 
17 to 20c lb, geese 17 to 20c lb, ducks 20 to 22c lb, capons 

23 to 25c lb. 

October 20, 1906. Poultry and game — Turkeys, good 
25 to 28c lb, westerns 25c lb, chickens 22 to 25c lb, native 
chickens 25 to 28c lb, fowl 18 to 20c lb, geese 22 to 25c lb, 
ducks 20c lb, capons 28c lb. 

November 10, 1906. Poultry and game — Turkeys, 
good 25 to 30c lb, westerns 25c lb, chickens 22 to 28c lb, 
native chickens 25 to 30c lb, fowl 16 to i8c lb, geese 20 to 
25c lb, ducks 18 to 25c lb, capons 25 to 30c lb. 

December 9, 1906. Poultry and game — Turkeys, 
good 25 to 28c lb, westerns 22 to 23c lb, chickens 17 to 20c 
lb, native chickens 23 to 25c lb, fowl 18 to 20c lb, geese 
20 to 22c lb, ducks 22 to 25c lb, capons 28 to 30c lb. 

112 



MARKETS 

January 5, 1907. Turkeys, good 25 to 30c lb, western 
22 to 25c lb, chickens 20 to 22c lb, native chickens 25 to 
28c lb, fowl 17 to 20c lb, geese 18 to 22c lb, ducks 18 to 22c 
lb, capons 28 to 30c lb. 

With regard to the New York City market for duck- 
lings, we have letters from dealers there written in Decem- 
ber, 1906, as follows (in connection with this see letter from 
A. J. Wallace & Co., West Washington Market, New York, 
which we send out with our price-Hst for breeding stock): 

B. Branin, with George F. Hinrichs Co., West Wash- 
ington Market, New York. — " I quote you on fancy young 
ducks twenty to twenty-two cents. I am badly in need of 
your kind of stock and if you are shipping anything at 
the present time I should be pleased to have it. In cases, 
I am getting more than these prices and, of course, if the 
stock warrants better prices than I quote you, I can get it." 

A. Silz, 416-418 West Fourteenth street. New York. — 
" We are always looking to do business with people we can 
depend upon. I will be pleased to take personal charge 
of your ducks and bring them to the notice of the trade 
here. In this way we could work up a premium price for 
them; we are in a position to create a demand on any- 
thing in our line. Regarding the price, send me one 
barrel as a sample and on receipt of same will wire you the 
price, which will give you an idea of the future. We can 
use all the ducks you can ship, — it does not matter how 
large the quantity as long as they are nice; they must, 
however, be dry-picked, killed, as we cannot use them 
alive. Last year we used over seven hundred thousand 
pounds of duckhngs." 

T. J. McMahon & Co., 323 Washington street. New 
York (W. R. McLaughlin, Treasurer). I look for the 
market on ducklings to open up (for the new season) about 
twenty to twenty-two cents and gradually work down to a 
basis of seventeen to eighteen cents and hang there as 
steadily and for about as long as it did last season. We 
are receiving quite a few ducks, but same are not of as 
good a quality as they should be, and we are placing 

113 



HOW WE MAKE DUCKS PAT 

them from seventeen to eighteen cents. The great trouble 
the past season was with the size of the ducks. We could 
have placed more weighing six pounds each and better 
than we were able to get. The raisers made no effort 
to raise any over four and one-half to five pounds, and the 
better class of trade would not buy that size for freezing 
purposes. Some of our best trade outside of this city 
won't use many ducklings on account of their being under 
five pounds and the same can be said about our best city 
trade. We sell only on commission of five per cent. We 
do not buy, either at point of shipping or here. Will take 
all you can ship daily. We want them shipped killed and 
either dry-picked or scalded and picked. We use now 
from twenty to thirty barrels of ducklings a day. I think 
the duck trade is on a steady increase." 

DeWinter & Co., Jay street, Washington to Green- 
wich streets, New York. — " We are in the commission 
business and do not buy anything. We can handle your 
ducks and eggs and can get the market prices at all times. 
The amount does not make any difference to us as we can 
handle any amount, ten packages or an equal number of 
cars. Perhaps you are looking for some one to buy out- 
right and if so would refer you to A. & M. Robins, Knapp 
& Van Nostrand, A. Silz. These people may purchase 
outright but we purchase nothing as we confine ourselves 
strictly to a commission business." 

G. H. Lewis & Sons, 43 Grace avenue, through to 
Thompson avenue. West Washington Market, New York. — 
" Regarding ducks would say we can handle same on a 
commission basis. We quote you as follows, live or 
dressed sixteen cents. The demand is best on live. If you 
can see your way clear to ship us a trial shipment on com- 
mission as we have stated, will do the best we can to give 
you satisfaction." 

I. V. Cohen, 96 Vesey street. New York. — *' Referring 
to the sale of Pekin ducks, would say, that if you are con- 
templating arrangements about the disposal of same, I 
think that I may be in a possible position to do you some 

114 



MARKETS 

good. I have been In this market for several years and 
stand high with the trade and could place your goods in 
both large and small blocks. I have no stock but am 
general salesman, and could introduce your firm to the 
highest and best standing trade in the city." 

Semmei & Pollack, 6ii East i8th street, New York. — 
" There is a good demand for ducklings always. We will 
pay about one dollar and twenty-five cents a pair for 
them. We can take from twelve hundred to fifteen 
hundred pounds a week. We want them shipped alive 
to us. The demand is increasing and we think we can 
work up a trade in your ducklings." 

Steers & Menke, West Washington Market, New 
York. — " There is a good demand for young ducklings 
and we will pay top market price on day of arrival of 
same. We can use all you can send us. We want them 
shipped killed and dry-picked. We use from fifteen to 
twenty barrels at a time now. The demand for duck- 
Hngs is increasing and we think the demand will increase 
every year." 

W. M. Stewart & Co., 345 Washington street. New 
York. — " We do not buy ducklings but sell on commission. 
Green or new ducklings in the spring usually sell for 
twenty-five to thirty cents a pound. We can take all that 
are sent us, dry-picked or scalded. We use about a car- 
load of ducklings a week now. The demand is increasing." 

T. W. Johnson & Co., 325 Washington street, New 
York. — " The dem^and for ducklings is increasing and we 
are sure we can work up a trade if good stock is shipped us. 
The future for ducks as a food is good. We do not buy 
but do strictly a commission business. The price depends 
on the weight of the ducks. We want them scalded and 
picked." 

Wooley & Highes, New York. — " We have the trade 
that we can place ducklings with to advantage. The 
prospects for ducks are very favorable. We do a com- 
mission business, securing the top market price. If 

115 



HOW WE MAKE DUCKS PAT 

shipped regularly, will make a specialty of same. We 
wish them shipped killed, dry-picked." 

Hance Bros., New York. — " We handle poultry on 
commission. We want ducks shipped both ahve and 
killed. Dry-picked is usually the more satisfactory 
method of shipment, as then they are better adapted to 
freeze when necessary. The demand for poultry of all 
kinds is increasing with the population. We certainly 
can work up a trade in your ducklings if we get a regular 
semi-weekly supply." 

We have not tried in above letters to cover the New 
York market in detail. Many of our customers have 
friends or connections in that great city enabhng them to 
place poultry of any kind to suit themselves. Many fine 
opportunities for selHng ducklings direct to the con- 
sumer are open to anybody who will take the time to find 
them, or are so situated that they know of them. 

The reader has noticed in above letters that some 
dealers in New York wish ducklings alive, others killed; 
some dry-picked, others scalded and picked. The best 
way to ship our ducklings is dry-picked and if you ship 
them that way even to dealers who say they are now getting 
ducklings scalded, they will be better pleased. They talk 
and write as they do, in some cases, because they have 
had no experience with dry-picked ducklings. You must 
inform the dealer what you can do, get his instructions 
and make recommendations to him as well as hsten to his 
recommendations. 



ii6 



CHAPTER TEN 
QUESTION BOX 

Queries and replies. — Holding the head when killing. — 
Restless at night. — How not to scald. — Do not grozv 
celery to feed to ducklings. — Dangers of going too 
fast, and the importance of getting experience. — ■ 
Demand in remote sections. — Not necessary to kill, 
they can be sold alive. — Farms that raise part of the 
ration. — Why ten to twelve weeks is the proper time for 
killing. — A suggestion as to worms. — Regrettable ex- 
perience in breeding to satisfy a false demand for 
small ducklings. — Points as to feeding and other 
details brought out by many letters. 

Q. — You say that when you are picking the duckling 
after sticking you hold the head between your knees. I 
don't see how you can get the feathers off if you do that. 
I have tried it and the bird flops around and I have diffi- 
culty in getting the feathers off. J. — Please read that 
chapter on picking again. We do not write there what 
you say we do. We tell you to hold the head of the bird 
between one knee and the feather box. This leaves the 
body in your lap, where you can turn it around to suit 
yourself as you pick it. You hold the head tightly 
against the box and this prevents the bird from flopping 
around and soiHng its feathers and body with blood. Sit 
in a chair while you pick. 

Q. — My ducklings have a yellow tinge to their flesh 
when I ship them. What is there in the food which 
causes this? J. — This is caused by allowing the duck- 
lings to He on green grass before you kill them. You must 
take them off the grass range one week or so before you 
kill them, and put them onto dirt. The yellow color seems 
to go through the feathers to the skin, 

117 



HOW WE MAKE DUCKS PAT 

Q. — My flock appear restless at times during the night 
and do not always go to bed and sleep. This worries me a 
good deal. Do you think they are sick? A. — They do 
not act like most animals when night comes. It is per- 
fectly natural for them to be restless at times and move 
about more or less. During the day they like to sit motion- 
less at times with heads under the wing. 

Q. — My marketman says to scald the ducklings before 
taking off the feathers. Now, why can't I put the whole 
bird right down all over into my wash-boiler? You say to 
hold the bird by head and feet and scald only the body. 
A. — Do not scald the bill and feet because if you do you 
will discolor them. You also will take the feathers off the 
head. This you must not do. The feathers are left on 
the head. 

Q. — I am going to grow celery and feed it to my duck- 
Ungs and get a higher price for the birds. Why don't you 
do it? A. — That is a foolish idea. It is true that wild 
ducks which feed on wild celery bring better prices 
because of the improved flavor, but if you raise celery 
in a garden, you can get ten times more money for it as it 
grows than in the form of duck-meat flavor. It is expen- 
sive flavoring. It is also a failure as flavoring because a 
celery-fed domestic duck does not taste anything like the 
wild canvasback duck fed on wild celery, and cannot be 
substituted for the canvasbacks. A big, grain-fed duck- 
ling is better eating than a canvasback and will bring as 
high a price when people get better acquainted with them. 
Canvasbacks are sold at high prices because they are com- 
paratively scarce and because fancy eaters have been in the 
habit of paying high prices for years for them. The 
demand has been cultivated by restaurants and hotels 
along with the terrapin and champagne demand. 

Q. — It seems to me strange, if there is so much money 
in ducks as you say, that instead of marketing forty-five 
or fifty thousand a year as you have done, you have 
not marketed one hundred or even two hundred thousand 
a year, and got rich much quicker. If your figures are 

ii8 



QUESTION BOX 

correct, and the work, as it seems to me, is only a ques- 
tion of hired help, why have you not pushed the business 
harder? I am of good business ability and I see no reason 
why I cannot accomplish in five years what might other- 
wise take twenty. Please advise me. J. — Go slowly. If 
you have been "figuring," tear up the paper and listen to 
reason. Is not experience worth acquiring.? If ducks 
could be turned out like a brick-making machine, it would 
be necessary only to speed up the machinery and work 
day and night. But they are living things and have to be 
nourished and cared for. A man is busy and has quite a 
good job on hand when he is shipping one thousand duck- 
lings a week to market, making a net profit of five hundred 
a week on them. If one ships one hundred thousand duck- 
lings a year to market, he must erect more buildings, em- 
ploy more help and be busier. To make a success, a man 
must keep things under his control. Don't bite off more 
than you can chew. What is the use of trying to do three 
years' work and make three years' profits in one year? 
People who deny themselves every pleasure but money- 
making find that when they are ready to stop work and 
enjoy their fortune they have made a mistake. We have 
known poultry beginners, fanciful dreamers, to start with 
a plant costing as high as five thousand dollars, with fifteen 
hundred head of birds, and the stories of their failures were 
blazoned all over their districts. If the average person of 
either sex, of ordinary inteUigence and ability, will start in 
a reasonable manner with ducks according to his or her 
means, and follow our teachings as given in this book, and 
by our letters, failure is next to impossible. An occasional 
mistake is not going to put one out of the business. An 
error can be corrected, and the lesson having been learned 
will not be repeated. There is positively no " out " about 
the duck business which will bring ruin. One man may not 
make as much money as another, that is to be expected. 
It is a question of starting with the right stock, following 
the right teachings and acquiring skill, experience and 
capacity, according to the individual. 

119 



QUESTION BOX 

Q. — In my State (Texas) there do not seem to be any 
ducks like yours, and people with whom I talk do not 
think there would be any sale for them. A. — Texas folks 
like chickens, or beefsteaks. You don't live on cereals 
altogether, down your way, any more than we do. You 
have a clear field and, take our word for it, Texans will 
buy good ducklings, pay your price, and come back to 
you for more. 

Q. — I have a solid gold watch for which I paid fifty 
dollars six months ago, and it is as good as new. How 
many ducks and drakes will you give me for it? I would 
like to be your agent out here, please quote agents' prices. 
A. — ^We sell for cash only; we have no agents and our 
prices are the same to everybody, to customers either in 
our own county or thousands of miles away. 

Q. — If these ducklings are such exceptional eating, as 
you state, why can't I get up an attractive little booklet 
and circular and mail them around and get a list of steady 
buyers that way? A. — You can, and you ought to; 
that is just the way the finest eggs, poultry, butter, etc., are 
sold, at the highest prices. 

Q. — I dislike the idea of killing the ducklings. Can I 
sell them alive? A. — Yes. There are thousands of poultry- 
men in the business of picking up birds alive from farmers, 
and marketmen everywhere who will take them alive. 

Q. — I do general farming. Do you think I can grow 
the foods your ducks eat and do better feeding them to 
ducks than selling them separately? A. — Yes, you can 
get much more for them in the form of duckmeat. If 
breeders make big profits with ducks by buying every- 
thing, as we do, those farmers who have to buy only a part 
of the ration, raising the most of it, will make more money. 

Q. — Instead of buying so much food stuff, why don't 
you raise it on your farm? A. — We wish to have our time 
free for the ducks and do not care to be busy at general 
farming, as we are satisfied with the profit on ducks from 
feeding bought food. We grow vegetables and green 
stuff for our needs, as that is no trouble. 

121 



HOW WE MAKE DUCKS PAT 

Q. — What is the proper time for kiUing ducklings? 

A. — From ten weeks to three months of age. Keep them 
longer and they eat off the profits every day. The aver- 
age farmer or housewife raising ducks for amusement by 
guesswork does not realize that. The age of ten to twelve 
weeks represents the maximum of plumpness and tender- 
ness with the minimum of expense. After that age, the 
plumpness and tenderness decrease and the cost of keep 
is being added to all the time. 

Q. — I read what you say, that worms are fine for ducks 
and save on the grain bill. Why not raise worms? Is any 
treatise published on propagating worms? Guess you will 
think I am joking. A. — Don't know of any worm guide. 
Would advise that you try the method seen in Belgium, 
where there is considerable swampy land. It is not un- 
common there to find a yokel walking in the swampy land 
at the head of a flock of ducks, his wooden shoes at every 
stride squeezing out of the muck worms which the ducks 
gobble greedily — a sort of automatic self-feeding, non- 
paying scheme. What Yankee can beat this.? 

Q. — Is there anything gained by breeding a small duck? 
A relative of mine living near here who did some duck 
breeding a few years ago used to get a good price for 
small duckUngs and said his dealer sold them quicker 
than bigger ducklings. A. — About ten years ago, some 
hotel and restaurant men in New York went to their duck 
and poultry markets and said: "We don't want you to 
give us too large a duckling. We get a good price now 
on our bills of fare and we wish from you (so we can 
make all the money possible) a medium-sized bird. When 
half of a medium-sized bird gets onto the table, it certainly 
will be large enough for one or two people. A whole 
big duckling is large enough for a family dinner. Keep 
the size down so they will cost us less and make us more 
money." The duck marketmen evidently did not argue 
the matter much. They passed the word along to the 
breeders in the territory south and west of New York, 
where most of the ducks then were being produced, and 

122 



QUESTION BOX 

these breeders, to please their trade, actually began to 
breed for smaller size. Before long they were shipping 
to market ducks weighing not over four pounds. The 
result was what any sensible man could have predicted. 
The consumers, the men and women who ate the duck- 
lings, complained and would not order them so often 
at hotels and restaurants. The hotel and restaurant 
managers soon changed their requests to " Give us the 
big duckhngs again." The breeders went back to the 
early methods. They found building up size not so easy 
as pulhng down.' Qualities cherished and perpetuated 
by years of study and skill had gone. Today the flocks 
of those breeders are not yet back to a big-sized duck- 
ling, but feel the effects of the period of stunting. It is 
safe in poultry breeding to work for the biggest and 
juiciest. Anybody in any occupation who trades in an 
inferior article, hoping to make a bigger profit by seUing 
it at the price of something better, is not playing fair to 
himself or to anybody. 

Q. — I live on the sea-coast. Is there anything in the 
air that would be prejudicial to the duck industry? J. — 
Snow does not last long on sea-coast land, and this is a 
point in favor of the coast, because the ducklings will get 
out on the ground earlier in the spring, enjoy more exer- 
cise and do better. There is nothing in salt air or sea- 
breezes unfavorable to ducks. 

Q. — I see you have plenty of windows in your houses. 
How many are advisable? J. — Put in windows freely. 
Light and sun are good for ducklings. When warm 
weather comes the windows are raised or taken out 
altogether so as to give plenty of free air. 

Q. — My ducks like to play in the muddy and swampy 
land. Will it hurt them? J. — No, it will do them good. 
You can't keep them out of the muck. They will run for it. 

Q. — How will I get my ducks to lay? J. — Feed them 
as we tell in the chapter on food. It is all a matter of food. 
They cannot lay unless they are nourished. If you starve 
them they will not do much for you. 

123 



HOW WE MAKE DUCKS PAT 

Q. — My ducklings do not seem very bright. They 
walked into a hole in the field and fell in and could not get 
out. Some were lamed and injured before I got them out. 
A. — Ducklings are more or less stupid and must not be 
given a chance to fall into holes, or to run against sharp 
obstructions. 

Q. — I have read in poultry books that ground over 
which fowls run becomes tainted and unhealthful in time if 
something is not done to purify it. Is this true of a duck 
farm? A. — Yes, and that is the reason crops of green 
stuff, like rye, are grown, to sweeten the soil. They do it, 
too, unfailingly. 

Q. — In dressing my first duck for the table, I tried to 
find the crop, to see if there was any food in it, but could 
not find it. A. — A hen has a crop, but a duck has not. 
The food passage in a duck runs from the mouth to the 
gizzard. 

Q. — I have an incubator for hens' eggs. Can I use it 
for ducks' eggs? A . — Yes. Of course, the ducks' eggs 
being larger, you cannot put in so many. 

Q. — Why is an incubator house built like a cellar? 
A. — Because it will not be freezing cold there in the 
winter, and in summer it will be twelve to eighteen degrees 
cooler than outdoors (making it a good place to keep 
eggs then). To built an incubator cellar, dig only three 
feet deep, and use the dirt to bank up the Walls outside. 
Buiid the walls of stone and cement. Put a roof over it, 
and a door at the end. Ventilate it well. Don't forget 
the ventilators, because egg-shells are porous. Dead 
air, with a large proportion of carbonic acid gas, and little 
oxygen, will influence badly the ducklings growing in the 
eggs- 

Q. — Why do you keep duckUngs of different ages 
separate? Why not turn all in together, the young and 
the old? A. — Because the old and strong birds would 
trample on and kill the smallest and weakest ones. 

Q. — At what age can ducklings be put out doors 
safely? A. — When they are six weeks old, rain and 

124. 



QUESTION BOX 

cold will not hurt them, and they can be left out in their 
yards all night, unless it is bitter cold and stormy, and 
they will thrive better for it. 

Q. — What are your prices for breeding stock? A. — 
See the sheet of prices accompanying this book. If the 
price-list is missing, or has been lost, write us for one, 
addressing your letter as follows to the Boston office: 
American Pekin Duck Company, 145 Pearl street, Bos- 
ton, Mass. 

Q. — At what age does a duck begin to lay? A. — 
When she is from four and one-half to five months old. 

Q. — Don't you lose any ducklings after you have 
hatched them? A. — There is a loss of only about two 
out of every hundred. 

Q. — Can you ship live breeding ducks and drakes 
safely to me? I live in California. A. — Yes; we ship the 
live birds by express any distance safely. We crate them 
lightly and strongly. For a long trip, a small bag of 
grain is sent along for food on the journey. The express- 
men feed the birds and also water them. (There is a 
water tin attached to the crate.) On a long railroad run, 
the express agent, we find, gives the birds plenty of atten- 
tion. It helps him pass the time away in the car, and he 
enjoys watching the birds. 

Q. — Do not the express companies make an extra 
charge for carrying your ducks a long distance? A. — 
No. Live ducks and drakes go long distances at the 
single, or lowest, merchandise rate. For short distances, 
the one and one-half rate is charged (not the double rate, 
as for some animals). 

Q. — What is the color of eggs laid by your strain? A. 
—White. 

Q. — If I buy some ducks and drakes of you, can I get 
along without an incubator? A, — If you try to work with- 
out an incubator, you must have hens to set on and 
hatch the ducks' eggs. The ducks are not broody and 
will not set on and hatch their eggs. Better have an 
incubator. 

125 




FATTENING SHED AND PENS 

As shown, the shed is open on both sides, giving plenty of fresh air at 
all times. It is simply a shelter from the sun, for the ducklings which are 
being fattened for market do not mind the rain at this age. The roof is not 
shingled. The cracks between the boards are covered with two-inch strip- 
ping. (No roofing paper here.) 

The yards are separated by wire netting, but under the shed boards are 
used. The feed boards and water pails are shown in the yards. The pails 
are near the food boards so that the ducklings can waddle quickly from food 
to drink, and back again. 



QUESTION BOX 

Q. — In case I do use a hen, how many duck eggs shall 
I put under her? A. — Nine under a small hen, and eleven 
or twelve under a large hen. 

Q. — Will a hen brood the young ducklings, or would 
you provide a brooder? J. — Get a brooder. A hen is 
awkward in brooding duckhngs, as a rule, injuring some 
by crushing. 

Q. — How would you advise working up a duck market 
in a place where ducklings are comparatively unknown? 
A. — ^Make the prospective customer a gift of a duckling 
and let him or her serve it for dinner. He will be won 
over by the experiment and, we predict, will report to you 
that the dish is ahead of chicken or turkey. Sales will 
follow as a matter of course. This is a good way to get 
acquainted with a hotel or restaurant keeper. 

Q. — Is your system of feeding followed by many? A. — - 
There are some breeders of ducks who care more for low 
cost than they do for flavor of meat. They feed fish 
caught from the ocean or lakes in nets. Ducklings 
fattened on fish taste fishy and their flesh is not fine- 
grained. 

Q. — Would you advise a woman to go into duck rais- 
ing? A. — It depends on the woman, as it does on the 
man, also. Some men get enthusiastic, and like to figure 
the money they are going to make, but after a while cool 
off and become lazy and indifferent. A woman who likes 
hens and chickens will hke ducks. The work is not much 
different. We know of good work done by women 
raising ducks. Of course women should hire help if they 
run a large duck farm. Some women are better fitted for 
poultry raising than men. 

Q. — What would you advise with regard to the selec- 
tion of a farm? A. — No matter how poor and how cheap 
the land, the manure from the ducks will fertilize it. Land 
which has a gentle slope, or which is gravelly, will be 
drained better than low, level land. It ought not to be 
possible for pools of water to form and get stagnant. 

Q. — Please explain more fully what a beginner should 

127 



HOtV WE MAKE DUCKS PAT 

guard against when buying breeding stock, A. — It is 
not uncommon for a beginner with ducks to buy 
breeding stock of unknown sources. Ducks and drakes 
may be offered at a low price in market stores or by 
unknown and irresponsible breeders. The novice should 
be very much on his guard against such stock. Unless 
you can start with reliable stock bred skillfully under 
proper conditions, it is better not to start at all. A 
few years ago a gentleman, known in New England now 
as the manager of a stock farm, experimented with ducks 
and learned by sorrowful experience what we are telling 
you here. He gives the story in his own words as follows: 

" We started with four large-sized incubators and about 
one hundred and eighty Pekin ducks. Foods were figured 
down to percentages, and we had to study arithmetic all over 
to learn what the ducks should have for supper, and tackle 
algebra to mix a proper breakfast. This was not the fault of 
our teacher, but was about the type of the general instructions 
for the feeding of poultry, and it is not yet all done away with 
in some quarters. We filled the first incubator with four 
hundred and eleven eggs. We managed to hatch seventy- 
eight. Our second hatch was one hundred and thirty-four 
out of four hundred and seventy-one eggs. Third hatch was 
one hundred and sixty-five out of five hundred and twenty eggs. 
About one hundred died after pipping. The hatches grew 
steadily worse, and the ducklings correspondingly weaker. A 
great many saw with one eye and walked with one leg. We 
asked the authorities, and found that our food was too hot, 
and that it was too cold; we fed too much meal, and too little 
meal; we did not ventilate enough, and they had too much 
air; we ought not to give them too much grit, and we must be 
sure to give them plenty; we must keep the house warm, and 
again it should not be very warm for ducks. They felt sure 
the temperature in the machine was too high or too low, and 
the ^ventilation was both ways. We did not find one who put 
the trouble where it belonged — in the eggs — and, back of 
that, in the breeding stock. The next year we got as low as 
seventy ducklings hatched from a full machine of eggs (four 
hundred and fifty to five hundred). We found out that we 
had been wasting our time with poor stock as breeders. We 
got together another flock and this time did better. To pro- 
duce strong, healthy ducklings one must have vigorous, hardy 
breeding ducks that have been selected and fed to that end, and 

128 



QUESTION BOX 

not, as is so often the case, merely chosen from a hap-hazard 
lot of forced market birds and thrown out as being good 
enough for breeders." 

The above should be read carefully and remembered. 
Get your breeding ducks of us and you will have hardy, 
vigorous birds that can lay fertile eggs. Do not start v^ith 
unknov^n stock or stock of doubtful value offered at a low 
price and go through the worries and vexations described 
in the foregoing paragraph. 

Q. — On page thirty-three you say that in the winter 
time, to save labor in the morning, the food is mixed at 
night. How do you mix it? J. — In mixing the food by 
hand, use a common, ordinary square shovel and a box. 
The most convenient size of box will be found to be six 
feet long, thirty inches wide and two feet deep, set on legs 
about eighteen inches high, and holding thirty-five to 
forty pails of food. 

Q. — On page thirty-nine you say that the mark of the 
sex in the drake is a curl feather in the tail. I have some 
drakes with two curl feathers in the tails. J. — Cer- 
tainly; drakes are seen with two curl feathers in the tail, 
although sometimes one or both are missing. 

Q. — On page thirty- two you give some details as to 
watering. Please give further details. J. — Ducks saved 
for breeders, and on a grass range, are fed twice a day, 
morning and evening. They should be watered more 
often during the day in warm weather. It is a good plan 
to keep cool water before the breeders all the time. On 
page thirty-two we say that they can be watered five times 
a day in addition to the two times at which they are fed. 
We do not mean by this that one should be continually 
carrying water to them, but that the object to be attained 
is, cool water before the breeders nearly continuously. 

Q. — On page thirty-three, care of breeding stock, you 
say to feed the mixture as soon as it is mixed. Why? 
J. — During the summer, it is a good plan not to mix the 
food until it is needed, as it is apt to get sour. In the 

129 



HOW fVE MAKE DUCKS PAT 

winter, to save labor in the morning, you can mix at 
night and have it all ready to feed in the morning. 

Q. — Some tell me that the down from ducks can be 
marketed separate from the feathers. Is this so, and does 
it pay? A. — The process requires special machinery and 
is not practical except by feather merchants and feather 
renovators. We never heard of a duck breeder separating 
the down from the feathers. 

Q. — I would thank you if you could give me good 
directions for picking ducks wet, or by scalding, as this is 
the method followed in this section where all of the ducks 
and poultry are shipped to the New York market. A. - 
Picking ducks by the scalding method is very easy after a 
little practice and experiment. If anybody is in doubt, 
go to your butcher or poultryman and he will tell you 
further; and, perhaps, you can watch him while he scalds 
a hen or a duck and picks it. 

Q. — Your book in chapter on feed says (page thirty- 
three) one pail is sufficient for thirty ducks. Is the size of 
the pail ten, twelve or sixteen quarts or more? A. — Ten 
quarts. If you use a twelve or fourteen-quart pail, do not 
fill it to the top. 

Q. — Would a good grade of what we term shorts take 
the place of low-grade flour? A. — Yes; flour is used 
principally to make the feed hold together. In details 
like this, methods of feeding diff^erent from ours v/ill give 
profitable results. Use the food materials which you have 
in your State. 

Q. — We are forty-five miles from Detroit. Would 
Detroit or Chicago be the better market ? And how is 
better to ship them, dressed or alive? A. — If you are 
nearer Detroit, we advise you to ship them there, dressed. 
Chicago is the larger market, of course. We would say 
it rested largely with you, as to the best terms you could 
make and best acquaintance you could form with a duck 
dealer or consumer. Try both places with your product, 
after you have started, and deal with the man or firm 
which pays you most and treats you the best. 

130 



QUESTION BOX 

Q. — How few ducks need a light at night? A. — 

Twenty. The more ducks one keeps in a flock, the more 
noisy and restless they are in the dark. 

Q. — Please give me the amount of feed necessary for 
a pen of thirty breeding ducks. J. — A ten-quart pail 
twice a day. (See page thirty-three.) 

Q. — Your book gives no reference to duck markets in 
the new State of Oklahoma, nor in northern part of Texas. 
A. — We do not know the details about all sections of the 
country. Wherever there are people to eat poultry, ducks, 
eggs, meat, etc., there is the market, and there you can 
sell duckhngs. Such facts can easily be ascertained in 
your section by observing or talking or writing. Get in 
touch with the storekeepers who sell poultry and pro- 
visions, or with men, women, hotels, clubs, dining-rooms, 
etc., which consume them. 

Q. — Please tell me the difference per pound between 
ducks alive and dressed. J. — In the Eastern markets, 
the difference is four to six cents a pound. We mean by 
this that live ducks sell for four to six cents a pound less 
than dressed ducks. 

Q. — I live within one mile of a city that has a popu- 
lation of fifty-five thousand, but there is no market there 
for ducks, so I am going slow and try to work up a home 
trade. J. — You are in error in stating that there is no 
market for ducklings in the city of fifty-five thousand 
people. They are not sold there now, perhaps, because 
there are no ducklings to be shipped there to be offered 
for sale there. You may have been told that there is no 
market there by somebody who has no call for something 
which does not yet exist for him. It rests with you to 
ship to such a market and create the supply. The demand 
is there waiting for you. You will have to show your 
goods and attract admiration for them and sell them on 
merit as everything is sold. There are thousands of 
famihes in that large city who would eagerly buy deli- 
cious ducklings for a change of eating, once a week, or 
oftener, and such people you ought to reach by circular, 

131 



HOW WE MAKE DUCKS PAT 

or word of mouth, or by letter, and get them interested. 
They are consuming milk, eggs and poultry now, of 
course, and it rests with you whether they shall consume 
ducklings. Give a pair of ducklings to the leadmg 
marketman there, if necessary, and let him display them 
in his stalls to his trade. You will find they will sell, and 
the dealer will ask you for more. If you are the first 
duck raiser to start in shipping to that city of fifty-five 
thousand people, you are lucky, for you can get a foot- 
hold with your stock quickly, and you need not worry 
about selling all you can turn out. But you must tell and 
show people what you do. Do not be afraid to talk and 
advertise. If you hide your fight under a bushel it cer- 
tainly will not be seen, nor will people go to you inquiring 
for the illumination. 

Q. — I should like to know the cost of erecting a one- 
hundred-foot duck house. A. — A duck house one hundred 
feet long by fifteen feet wide, covered with our duck-house 
roofing (which never requires painting) is built in a good, 
substantial manner for about two dollars and a half per 
running foot. 

Q. — I wish to ask only one question, and that is, 
could ducks be raised profitably by attending to them in 
the ordinary way, say with a few, giving part of my time 
to them, as I am employed regularly at something else 
which takes me from home? A. — Certainly, you can 
manage them exactly as a small poultry plant is managed 
by men who work at something else for their main living. 

Q. — How many ducks would I need to supply one 
hundred eggs to fill incubators every two weeks? I 
would wish to run two incubators, one hatching two weeks 
later than the first. A. — Twenty ducks and four drakes 
would be about the proper number. 

Q. — Brewers' grains cost but three dollars per ton in 
New York and make excellent feed for cows. Can brewers' 
grain be fed to ducks and if so, with what result? A.— We 
have had no experience with brewers' grains, but see no 
objection to feeding them in moderate quantities mixed 

132 



QUESTION BOX 

with other feeds, say about twenty per cent, and fed to 
ducks after they are six weeks old. 

Q. — You say that in selecting breeding birds, other 
considerations besides size need to be considered. What? 
Please enlarge upon the proper selection of breeding stock 
from a flock. J. — The most important consideration in 
selecting breeders is contained in three words, stamina, 
vitality and activity. The experienced duck breeder has 
these three features always in mind when making selec- 
tions. Secondly, size and weight are in order, in con- 
nection with shape, contour or symmetry. 

Q. — You speak of that special granite grit, and I would 
like to learn if that is really necessary and distinctly better 
than other gravel which the birds might pick up anywhere. 
J. — Where only a few ducks are kept, common sand or 
fine gravel m.ay be sufficient. Duck grit, however, is so 
cheap that we use it for our birds and always recommend 
it. 

Q. — What is the relative proportion of duck eggs 
needed to fill an incubator of one hundred and fifty hen 
egg capacity? You may also give me the figures as to 
geese and turkey eggs. A. — An incubator of the above 
capacity will hold one hundred ducks' eggs and seventy- 
five geese or turkey eggs. No matter what the size of 
your incubator, you can put in it two duck eggs for every 
three hens' eggs. 

Q. — If you were to turn the eggs with cold and clammy 
hands, would it not be apt to chill the embryo at certain 
stages, and thus impair its vitality? I have never noticed 
any caution in this matter, but it seems to me that if one 
were to come in out of a cold day, and especially with low 
blood circulation which no amount of action or warmth 
would generate, and do the work of turning the eggs, it 
would not be just the thing. Perhaps people with cold 
hands should don a pair of woolen gloves before turning 
eggs in an incubator, or let some one else do it. J. — No 
danger. You do not pick up the eggs to hold them long 
enough to chill them, no matter if your hands are cold as 

U3 



HOW WE MAKE DUCKS PAT 

ice. You turn the eggs with the tips of the fingers. Cer- 
tainly you can wear gloves as a preventive if you wish, and 
your mind will be at ease on this point. We warm our 
hands by holding them up against the heater of the 
incubator. 

Q. — I can get scraps, meats, etc., from the restaurants 
and hotels here. Would you advise their use at any time 
after the ducklings are six weeks old? A. — Yes, this is an 
excellent way to obtain feed for the ducks. The stale 
bread could be soaked in water and mixed with regular 
grain with fine results. 

Q. — When we scald a duck, can the feathers be made 
marketable Uke dry-picked ones? A. — Yes; the feathers 
are put on the floor of a room very thin, and shaken with 
a hay-fork every few days until dry, then are pushed upon 
a heap to make room for more. 

Q. — I have been observing the market quotations here 
(Iowa) for several months, and find they never exceed 
twelve cents. If the ducklings average six pounds, they 
would average seventy-two cents. If it costs from six to 
ten cents per pound to raise and market them, I am 
unable to figure out fifty cents profit on each one. A. — 
The market quotations you see apply to the commonest or 
puddle ducks, always about a third to a half lower than 
the quotations on first-chss ducklings. They generally 
apply also to old ducks, not to the young and tender 
dry-picked ducklings, with which few markets are 
acquainted. You cannot learn the true market prices by 
what you see in the papers, as these frequently run for 
months without change, and are inspired almost wholly 
by dealers who wish to buy as cheap as they can. To 
find out the true prices in your city, go out in person, or 
telephone, and offer to BUY ten-week-old ducklings of 
good weight. In raising ducklings, you would have an 
important advantage in getting your grain much cheaper. 
In Iowa, ducks can be raised for less than five cents a 
pound. 



QUESTION BOX 

Q. — The only thing I don't understand in your book is 
about plowing up the yards in August. How do you 
manage this with the ducks? Are they inside the house 
when the yards are being plowed up, or out on the range? 
A. — Plowing in August, mentioned in the foregoing, 
refers to the breeding yards. The ducks are through lay- 
ing, they have earned their money and should be dis- 
posed of, or put on the range, and the yards gotten ready 
for the coming fall, for the new breeders. 

Q. — Do duck houses need to face the south? J. — It 
is always advisable, in this section of the country, to face 
the duck buildings either south or southeast. 

Q. — How are the roof ventilators made? A. — Make 
a box thirty inches long and ten inches wide, open at the 
bottom. Nail two boards on the top end, pitch-roof 
fashion, to keep out the rain. Saw a hole in the roof of the 
house just large enough to receive the ventilator. Nail it 
on and fit snug with roofing paper. 

Q. — When ducks are allowed to stay out doors at 
night, is there no danger from skunks, weasels, etc.? A. — 
After ducks are six weeks old, there is no danger. 

Q. — Will rats kill the young ducklings? A. — Yes. 
No danger after they are six weeks old. 

Q. — Do you keep on hatching as long as the ducks lay? 
^.— Yes. 

Q. — Is there any special month that is better for hatch- 
ing breeders? A. — ^Yes. April and May are the best 
months. 

Q. — Will you sell me one drake to put with my own 
Pekins? A. — Yes, we have many calls for drakes, apart 
from ducks. Price four dollars and six dollars each, 
according to size and quality. See price-Hst. 

Q. — If one wishes to keep breeding ducks over from 
one year to the next, can the feathers be picked from the 
live birds and marketed? If so, how often should they be 
picked? A. — It is not advisable to pick the feathers from 
live breeders. It does not pay. The birds would receive 

135 



HOW WE MAKE DUCKS PAT 

a setback, making them less valuable as breeders the fol- 
lowing season. 

Q. — When breeding stock have ample range, with 
green grass, in spring and summer, is it necessary to give 
either vegetables or clover, and might the meat be reduced? 
A. — It is not necessary to supply any vegetables when 
ducks have a green range. The meat ration should be 
kept up, however. 

Q, — Do you advise saving stock for breeders from 
yearlings, or two-year-olds? A. — There is not much 
difference in either case. The important point is to have 
the birds strong and vigorous. 




SHET,TER ROOF FOR DUCKS ON THE RANGE 



136 




in person 



THE HOME OF OUR DL 

(The whole of the farm could not be shown here on account of limited space for this picture. Enougl 

idea of the magnitude and capacity of the plant.) 



MAR 9 1907 



